


Sam Squared

by Couyfish, Threshie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Sam Winchester, Coffee, Destiel - Freeform, King of Hell Crowley, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Mooseley, POV Crowley, POV Dean Winchester, Podfic Welcome, Sassy Crowley, Secret Relationship, Soulless Sam Winchester, Souls, Supportive Dean, Takes place sometime during season 10, Team Free Will, Texting, Witch Sam, Witchcraft, body double, but no particular Big Plot arc is going on except Mark of Cain is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-01-25 07:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 32,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12526268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Couyfish/pseuds/Couyfish, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threshie/pseuds/Threshie
Summary: When a spell goes wrong, Sam is split into two people, each with half of his soul — and half the morality that comes with it. The halves do not get along. Dean and Castiel try to reassemble Sam before the two conflicting sides of him can cause any damage.





	1. Seeing Double

**Author's Note:**

> Here comes another chapter fic from Couyfish and I! Sam's up to something, and Dean's got to know what. This one's going to be 10+ chapters with new updates on Fridays, so stay tuned. We hope you enjoy the story! -Threshie ❤

Dean watched over his coffee cup as Sam sidled suspiciously past him. He had some big brown leather bag behind his back.

"Aww, nobody invited me to the sleepover," he commented, taking a sip of the coffee. It was like nine in the morning, but he didn't have a better comment before the coffee. Whatever.

Sam flinched at the sound of his voice, almost toppling over in an attempt to lean casually on the door frame to the hallway. He ran a hand through his messy hair and cleared his throat. 

“There any c-coffee left for me?” 

Dean sat up in his chair, jerking a thumb at the coffee pot behind him.

"You don't sound like you need it, but yeah." He looked at the bag Sam carried for a long, deliberately obvious moment. "...Sooo..."

Sam glanced at it as well, tucking it behind his back. 

“Have you seen Cas? It’s been awhile since he’s visited — you don’t think he got into trouble do you?” The tall man stammered, taking a wide step further around the door frame. He forced a laugh and shrugged. “You know Cas!” 

Dean raised his eyebrows, then frowned and shook his head.

"Nope, not a peep from him in at least a week. He's probably distracted by all of the Christmas stuff out there right now," he said, taking another sip of the coffee. "Can't believe they're selling Christmas stuff already.” Cue a snort and a shake of his head. “Why, you have any idea where he is?"

“No!” Sam shook his head and backed into the hall. “Ah, nope. Haven’t seen him. You know, we shouldn’t worry about him. He’s a big guy! He’ll be fine,” The younger Winchester said with a determined nod. “But if you happen to see him, could you have him come see me?” Sammy added hopefully. 

"Uh...sure thing, Sammy," Dean told him dubiously. Cas was the smallest guy there when he was around. Sam was acting way too suspicious, and it seemed to have something to do with the angel. Maybe locating Cas would be a good idea.

He paused, frowning.

"Where are you going, anyway?"

“Uhhhhhh…” Sammy looked back into the hallway and cringed. He licked his lips and looked back at Dean from under his eyebrows. “Laundry? I thought I heard the dryer buzz.”

Dean raised his own eyebrows. 

"You're gonna put your laundry in a backpack? Dude. You're the one who got in MY case for not using the hamper you bought."

Sam shook his head and backed around the corner, a hand held up.

“No, that’s not what it’s for. Just…I gotta go.” With that, he spun around and hurried away down the hall, daring a couple of glances behind him to make sure that Dean wasn’t following him.

Sam's brother stared after him, shaking his head.

"Laundry my ass." Chasing after Sam would be useless at this point, and too obvious anyway. No, Dean decided, he would be sneaky for once. Swigging the last of his coffee, he headed off to get the laptop and try tracking Sam's phone.

According to handy dandy GPS, his brother was not-so-subtly running off to not the laundry room, but...his bedroom?

"Could've just said you needed a nap," Dean commented, frowning at the screen. He shrugged and turned the program off, closing the laptop. Okay then. Sam was up to some kinky weirdness in his room. He could respect that.

Wait...Sam had also acted really, really nervous when Dean mentioned Cas, though. Was Cas...in Sam's room?

Uneasily, he looked at the laptop. He could try tracking the angel's cell phone...but he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

His mind just would not shut up about the possibilities, though, and the other only other option was to go peek into Sam's room. Grabbing the computer again, Dean quickly tracked Castiel's phone as well.

The angel was currently...well, not in Sam's room. Not anywhere that made sense, either – the phone's location was off on some side road across town.

"Guess it's Leave Dean in the Dark Day," Dean grumbled, turning the computer off again. Where was everybody running off to so early? Why not tell him? He'd wanted to try and find something to hunt with Sam, but apparently his brother was busy.

Pie. He needed pie. So what if it was so early he hadn't even had breakfast, just had coffee...

Wait. Coffee. Sam had wanted some, and then ran off without getting any.

Dean got up and poured himself another cup, along with a cup for Sam. Hey, he was just being nice and looking out for his brother's caffeine needs by visiting his room. If he happened to interrupt any kinky weirdness, well, that was Sam's fault for not hanging a sock on the doorknob...

He took both cups of steaming, roasty, tempting coffee and headed to his brother's room, "knocking" (read: lightly kicking) with his foot since his hands were full. The coffee smell had to be coming through the door. What kind of beans were these? They kind of smelled like vanilla.

He overheard two male voices, then a growl of ‘SHH!’ before the door opened. It wasn’t even locked! Sam bolted over across the room to half close the door as a shoulder disappeared behind the edge of the bed out of sight.

“Yeah?” He looked nervously back over his shoulder and then at Dean. “What?”

"You said you wanted coffee..." Dean leaned to the side a little, trying to peek past him into the room even as he offered one of the mugs to Sam. "Here ya go. Not that you need the caffeine..." He turned from the view of the room to Sam, dubious. "What's going on, Sammy? You're flighty as hell."

Did he imagine the person ducking out of sight? ...No, there was definitely somebody else in there. Somebody who did NOT sound like a woman. Dean wasn't gonna judge if Sam swung the other way, but they didn't just bring civilians into the bunker.

Sam took the coffee and again glanced back into the room.

“I’m okay, I just…I really…” He trailed off, mumbling and rubbing a hand over his face.

"Got company?" Dean filled in for him, glancing over his shoulder into the room again pointedly.

Sam’s cup of coffee tipped dangerously as he shook his head.

“No. It's the, uh, TV.” He stared Dean down, eyebrows pinching together more and more.

Dean stared right back, taking a long sip of his coffee without so much as a blink.

"Uh-huh. 'TV' is awful quiet now that you said 'shh' and hid 'TV' behind your bed," he commented.

“You think it’s a girl?” Sam said indignantly. “Dean, no one else is here. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to bring some one night stand back here.”

"Then who is it?" Dean asked, frowning. "I know it's not Cas, he's miles away!" Oh, right...he hadn't had any idea where Cas was when they talked in the kitchen. Whoops.

“Cas? What? No!” Sam stepped back and sat the coffee down on his bed stand. He held up his hands. “FINE. You’re gonna find out sooner or later anyways, just…don’t freak out!”

“Is that my cue?” Another voice said from behind the bed. No wait, that was Sammy’s voice. 

Standing up from behind the bed, looking just as nervous as the other one, was ANOTHER SAM.  
The first one turned from his look-a-like to Dean, gesturing to the other him.

“It’s me.”

Whatever Dean had been expecting, this was not it. He stood there stock still, gripping his coffee mug, and stared.

He glanced quickly between the two of them, brows furrowing. 

"A shifter?" Which one was the real Sam? Why the hell was he protecting the fake?

“No, I did this.” The first Sam shook his head sadly. He leaned and yanked the covers back to reveal a roll of duct tape and one of their rather scary looking knives. “He’s not real. We agreed he was fake and I was going to deal with it.”

The other one looked at the knife sadly, but didn’t make any comment.

Dean stepped into the room, closing the door out of instinct even though there really wasn't anybody outside to overhear.

"Just hold on a minute," he told his brother...brothers?...frowning. "WHAT did you do? How'd this happen?"

He kept a wary eye on both of the Sams. The idea of a shifter still wasn't entirely ruled out. It was disorienting how perfectly identical they were, though. Their hair was cut the same way. They had the same little bit of scruff on their chins. They both moved and blinked and fidgeted exactly like Sam did.

“I found a spell that claimed that I could work twice as fast. I thought it would just make me MOVE faster, not MAKE ANOTHER ME! He just appeared out of nowhere, butt-naked!”

Now that Dean noticed, the Sam he had given the coffee was in normal jeans and a button up, while the supposed twin was in Sammy’s blue plaid PJ pants and a white tee.

“I already agreed I’m fake,” the other Sam said after a second. He said it carefully evenly, though, and had the beginnings of that sad puppy look on his face. “Dean, we can fix this without you. That’s why we didn’t want to tell you.”

Dean held up both hands – well, one hand and his coffee mug – and stepped over closer to the bed and his brother's apparent magic clone.

"Slow it down a minute and think about it. What if YOU," he pointed at the pajama Sam, "aren't a clone of YOU." He gestured to button up Sam with his coffee, frowning. "What if it split you in half, like, half your soul's in each one or something? What if you're about to off half of your friggin' personality? We should put you back together."

The Sams glanced at each other.

“I…didn’t think of that,” the first said, rubbing his neck and looking down at the knife.

“But the spell isn’t made to be reversed. He said he would’ve tried that.” The other looked at the knife too, hugging his arms around his stomach.

“Yeah, I’d have to find an entirely different spell.” The first Sam sighed. Both of them moved to grab the coffee, but the one in pajamas backed off immediately. He perched on the foot of the bed as the other Sam sipped the coffee.

“Cas!” He said, looking up at the other him. “We should be able to tell who has your soul.”

“Our soul,” Sam replied over his coffee, frowning. 

Dean sighed and handed his coffee to the Sam in the PJs.

"That's a good idea. You guys feel okay, right? It's not doing any damage or anything?" A spell that split you in half just did not sound safe...especially if it didn't tell you about it first. Apparently Sam was tinkering with more witchcraft than Dean had previously thought. That was a subject for another time, though.

“Yeah, I feel fine.”

“Thanks,” the other Sam mumbled, looking at Dean like he had just handed him a million bucks. He sipped the coffee carefully, pausing to savor it.

“Okay, let’s call Cas.” The first Sam dug out his phone with one hand and dialed up the angel — then stuck the phone at Dean.

Dean shot him a "why me?" look, but took the phone. It was smart to have him do the talking, when he considered for a second. How would Cas know if he'd been talking to the real Sam or not once he figured out there were two?


	2. Half and Half

"Sam." The angel's greeting was pretty concise. He sounded a little glum, Dean thought. Weird. "I've been thinking about what you said."

Dean glanced from one Sam to the other, wondering which one said...whatever he'd said to Cas.

"Cas, hey. It's Dean, I'm just borrowing Sam's phone," he said, bemused. Did they always do this much stuff behind his back? It had been a pretty dull morning, just him and the coffee pot and a newspaper. They could have had mercy.

"Oh...hello, Dean," Castiel replied, sounding a bit awkward now. "What happened to your phone?"

His younger brothers were both sitting on the end of the bed. They were both sipping their coffee and having some kind of silent conversation while Dean’s attention was elsewhere. The one in the pajamas shook his head finally, hissing.

“Shh.”

They both glanced up at Dean.

He shot them a small frown, shaking his head.

"Not important right now. Cas, we've got a situation here at the bunker. Can you drop whatever you're doing out there and come back?"

"Yes," Cas said immediately, sounding concerned. "Is it Sam?"

"How'd you know?" Dean blinked.

"You're using his phone."

Right. It made some kind of weird sense.

"It's...Sam-related," he replied reluctantly. "You kinda need to take a look for yourself. Hurry."

"I'll start back right now." Cas hung up without any further comment.

Sighing, Dean lowered the phone and stepped back over to face his little brothers. With them dressed differently, they didn't feel like clones – it was like they were twins. Very surreal.

"Uh...not sure which one of you wants the phone back," he admitted, shrugging and holding it out. "Cas is coming."

“Okay.” The Sam that wasn’t in the pajamas got up and sat his mostly empty coffee aside. He took the phone and stuck it into his back pocket then waved for the other to stand up too. As soon as he did, Sam grabbed him by the arm. “Until Cas gets here, we need to keep you locked up.”

“Wait, why?” The other objected, twisting his arm free. “What if Dean’s right? What if I’m just as real as you?”

“You were the one who appeared out of thin air. If one of us is fake, it’s most likely you. Come on. We already had this conversation.” Sammy snagged the knife too, tucking it under his arm and leading his twin to the door despite the protest.

“The one where I agreed to let you KILL me?” The Sam in pajamas snapped, keeping an eye on the knife.

“Yeah, that one.”

The other one didn’t reply, frowning sadly instead.

Dean hurried after them. 

"Hey, nobody's killing anybody until we're sure that doesn't cause permanent damage!" That was a hell of a sentence. He pulled the knife from under Sam's arm, holding it away from them both. "If you did split in half, you're BOTH off, and if anybody should keep an eye on you, it's me."

“Dean, if there’s anyone I know how to deal with — it’s ME,” the normal Sam said with a sigh. He dragged the other him along and sat him at the main room’s table. Taking a deep breath, he took a seat too.

The Sam in pajamas looked at him and then up at Dean.

“Any idea where Cas was when you called him?”

"Yeah, Highway 281/9 in Gaylord," Dean replied. Shit, that sounded too specific, didn't it? They'd know he was tracking Cas's phone. Too late now. With a heavy sigh, he pulled up a chair and took a seat across from the Sams, studying them thoughtfully. "So when did this happen? Today?"

“Yeah,” both Sams mumbled. They looked at each other again. They did that a lot.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” The Sam in regular clothes said quietly, glancing at his other self.

The other Sam frowned, but didn’t comment.

Dean shrugged and stood. 

"Sure, if either of you wants to talk in private we can." He turned to the Sam in pajamas, adding evenly, "And whoever I'm not watching gets cuffed 'til we get back. That work for everybody?"

The Sam in pajamas stood up suddenly, pointing at his lookalike.

“You’re gonna convince Dean to kill me.”

“No, I’m not—”

“Or tell him that I’m the fake one!”

The other Sam stood up and held up both his hands. 

“You ARE the fake one!”

Before another word was said, they were crashing past the chairs, hands at each other’s throats.

"CUT IT OUT!" Very glad he'd taken away the knife, Dean ran around the table and grabbed the Sams' shoulders, trying to separate them from each other. "I'm not killing anybody, and neither are you!"

They stepped apart at the sound of Dean’s voice, both still glaring daggers at the other. The Sam in normal clothes — now with a scrape on his cheek — jabbed a finger at his twin.

“Sit down and shut up. We’ll sort this out when Cas gets here!”

The other turned and shoved past Dean, leaning on the other side of the table instead of taking a seat. He wiped at the small cut bleeding above his eyebrow and scowled at Sammy.

Dean crossed his arms, scowling at the two of them. 

"You'd think you'd trust another you. Sit down, BOTH of you, and let me deal with this." Cas wasn't that far out from Lebanon. With any luck, he'd arrive soon and they'd sort this out.

Dean wasn't sure HOW, exactly, though. If Sam's soul was split in half, how did they put it back together? If it wasn't, he wasn't sure he could stomach anybody just stabbing the second Sam to death. It was still SAM, with all of his memories obviously in there...

He grabbed the first aid kit from the kitchen, sitting down at the table and pulling out bandaids and disinfectant. "C'mon, sit down. Please."

Sam sat down in the chair next door, still glaring at the version of him in pajamas.

“Dean, I’ve never heard of someone’s soul being split in half. He’s not real,” he whispered to Dean.

"We see crap we've never seen before all the time, Sammy," Dean pointed out, frowning and handing him a disinfectant wipe for his cheek. "There's no reason to go wacko and try to KILL anybody when we'll know what we're dealing with once Cas takes one look at you guys."

He turned to the Sam in pajamas and handed him a disinfectant wipe, too, for the cut near his eyebrow. 

"Obviously there wasn't two of you yesterday, but the spell made another you out of SOMETHING, right? And you both seem to have all of your memories and personality and everything intact. Even if one of you's new, you're still a person and I'm not gonna let anybody kill you. Okay?"

“You really think I came to the conclusion of killing my other self lightly?” Sam whispered, dabbing his cheek. “And…he’s been here for two days.” Sam’s phone suddenly buzzed and he checked it. It seemed to be something important, but he still tucked the phone back into his pocket.

The Sam in pajamas took a seat on the other side of Dean, keeping an eye on the other him. He still seemed a little more sad than the other one, but also very interested in the phone. Their eyes met for a second and there seemed to be some kind of message exchanged.

"I think rolling around on the floor trying to strangle each other is stupid," Dean replied flatly, scowling. "And go figure you lied about when it happened – look at you, you're still hiding stuff from me." He shook his head, shoving bandaids at both of his brothers.

They kept exchanging looks like they KNEW something they didn't want to mention to him.

"Was that Cas texting?" He added more quietly, sighing.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, first to Dean and then to the other him. “I’m sorry. I just…it’s so weird. I guess I don’t like me very much.”

“I know what you mean,” the other Sam said softly, awkwardly trying to put the bandage over the cut since he couldn’t see it. He got it over about half of the wound.

Dean fidgeted, glancing at the phone and between the Sams a few times. Finally he relented and reached across the table, moving the pajama-clad Sam's bandaid to cover the cut properly.

"Try and think of the other you as a different person," he offered. "Like you're twins or something. C'mon, you're a nerd, this has to be at least a LITTLE neat to you."

The sound of the front door opening and closing echoed through the bunker to them.

The Sams looked up at the sound of the door. 

“Cas?” The Sam in regular clothes called, getting up again. The other Sammy shrank down in his seat.

Dean reached across the table and patted his shoulder, glancing over at the door as well. It had to be Cas – who was about to do a double take, probably.

"Sam," the angel greeted, stepping quickly into the room and over to the Sam near the doorway. He noticed the scrape on his cheek and tilted his head, frowning. "...Where's Dean, Sam?"

The pajama clad Sam glanced at Dean, patting his arm in return. He looked a little scared.

“He’s over there.” The Sam at the door turned to lead the angel into the main room, gesturing to his brother.

Castiel stopped when he reached the table, looking at the second Sam with less surprise than Dean was expecting. He seemed more bemused than anything.

"This...is not good."

"Understatement," Dean sighed. "Long story short, Sam cast a spell and poof, there's two Sams. They think one's just a copy, but I'm not so sure."

Cas glanced at him, then back to the Sam who was sitting at the table.

That Sam looked up at him, still keeping a hand on Dean’s arm. 

“Hey Cas,” he said sadly. Brushing Dean’s hand off, he got up and tucked his hands into his pajama pockets.

“Okay, Cas. Which one’s real?” The other Sammy said, gesturing between the two of them.

The angel looked at them side by side carefully.

"You're both real," he said with certainty.

Dean moved over to look at the two Sams, too, worriedly.

"A spell couldn't just make him a second soul, though, right? Which one has his soul?"

"They both have souls," Cas said, still looking the Sams over thoughtfully. "They seem...faded somehow, like they're less powerful than usual, but they are identical."

The Sam in pajamas paced away, letting out a shaky breath. His twin watched him, frowning. He turned back to Cas.

“We’re both real? How’s that possible? And better question, how the hell do we fix it?”

"Your souls seem about half as bright as a regular one," Cas replied, glancing after the pajama Sam. He turned back to the other one. "Dean is right – a spell can't create a human soul. Yours must be split in half, half of it in each of you to make you yourself."

Dean rubbed his forehead. If he hadn't decided to be nosy and take Sam coffee, his brother had been about to MURDER half of himself? The other Sam had been willing...sort of...so maybe half commit suicide?

Whatever it was called, it was screwed up.

He took a deep breath and addressed both of the Sams. 

"Called it."

“Again,” normal Sam sighed, glancing after his other self too. “How do we fix this? Wait, wait. I’ll get the spell.” He took off back down the hallway, most likely to fetch his laptop. The other Sam looked after him worriedly. 

Dean patted the remaining Sam's shoulder again.

"See, you're real. Nobody's gonna die here," he promised. "Cas, have you ever seen anything like this before?"

The angel looked at him unhappily.

"No. Sam...the other one," he clarified, glancing at the pajama-wearing Sam, "is correct, looking at the spell will help us figure out what happened."

Sam turned and hugged Dean, patting his back. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled before breaking away to sit at the table again. He didn’t look any happier. Looking between them, he sighed. “I didn’t realize how much I…” He trailed off as the other Sam came back, laptop tucked under one arm and a big black leather book in the other hand. 

“This is the spell.” He laid the book down and opened it to a page with dense text on it. It was all hand written and was so worn in places that words were missing. He sat his laptop next to it and pulled up a big block of text dotted with symbols. “And this is the one that I used. It’s pretty much the same, but I had to fill in the blanks a few times. From what I researched, I’m damn sure that I got it right.” 

He turned to Cas. 

“It was supposed to let me work twice as fast. I was testing it to see if it somehow made me learn faster or something.” 

"You modified it?" Dean frowned, crossing his arms. 

Cas leaned to study both the book and computer screen, brows furrowed. 

"That does sound very useful if it worked properly," he admitted. "I'll need to study these." Sitting up, he glanced between the Sams. "Your souls have less power, but they don't seem damaged. I believe it's safe for you to stay like this while we do some research."


	3. Hitting the Books

“Hey.” Sam’s voice pulled Dean out of his boredom induced nap. It seemed like Cas and the other Sam had wandered off during the HOURS and HOURS of research. What time was it? 

It was the Sam with the cut on his forehead who was holding out a big cup of coffee towards him. He smiled. “Thought I’d pay you back.”

Dean sat up, squinting at him and trying not to look as groggy as he felt. He'd been just starting to dream, something about a pie truck that delivered to your front door. If only...

"Hey, thanks," he told his brother, accepting the steaming mug with a smile. "How're you holding up? Cas says this isn't dangerous, but still, it's pretty weird."

The younger Winchester looked around at all of the books on the table before sitting down with a sigh. He scooted one over and paged through it. 

“I…I don’t know.” Tapping his fingers on the book’s pages, he sat back in his seat to frown at Dean. “I don’t like the other me. Ever since we split in half, he keeps treating me like I’m the impostor. Even after Cas said we were the same! I don’t know. It feels like the longer we’re apart, the less alike we are. When I first showed up, it was like looking in a mirror. We finished each other’s sentences and agreed on everything. Now…” He rubbed his forehead and shook his head. 

Dean sipped his coffee, sitting up. 

"I was meaning to ask about that. How'd you guys decide you were fake? I mean, okay, this you appeared with no clothes, but usually YOU think of all the options even more than I do, and I came up with 'split in half with pieces of your soul in both'," he pointed out, furrowing his brows. "Did you really agree to let him kill you?"

“I didn’t just agree, Dean.” Brushing his hair back off of his forehead, Sam revealed a rather large lump. “While I was sitting in a ball on the floor naked — other me decided I was a fake and clubbed me. When I woke up, he explained what he had come up with. That the spell had created a copy of him and that in order to keep our asses from getting kicked by YOU — we had to get back to being one. We tried some really weird stuff we found on the Internet, spells and chants and so on. Nothing seemed to be working and we noticed that we stopped being identical.” 

He shrugged. 

“So he stole that book from downstairs and it had a spell in it that DID create a copy. Some of the words matched and one thing led to another. It all seems so stupid now.” 

PJ Sammy hugged himself and stared at Dean, shoulders slumping. 

Dean sat his coffee down, holding up his hands.

"Whoa, whoa, hold on. The spell he's studying with Cas isn't even what really happened?"

The other Sam definitely seemed to have a more forceful personality than this one – he wasn't that surprised that the idea to kill the other one hadn't exactly been voluntary. If it had, the Sam he knew would've picked a method a lot more humane than duct tape and a knife. Still, neither Sam was the normal one. Cas could see they each had half a soul.

“No, that’s the spell he used originally. The one in the black book. I was talking about the red book. It’s just about creating clones to do stuff for you. They’re soulless,” Sam explained tiredly, stretching over to snag a half drank cup of coffee from the end of the table.

Dean watched him worriedly. 

"Doesn't sound like something you'd mess with, Sammy. You still have all of your memories in there, right? You remember back before there were two of you, or you wouldn't even know who I am," he reasoned. "If you can describe exactly what happened, what ingredients you used, Cas can use that."

Sam looked at him and frowned. 

“The other me knows too. They probably already discussed it.” He sipped his coffee and went back to slowly paging through the book in front of him. “Don’t need me to figure it out.”

"Yeah, well the other you didn't mention clubbing you on the head," Dean grumbled, taking a sip of his coffee. He frowned. "Listen, Cas can see the truth. You're every bit as real as he is, so why're you ACTING like you're the fake still?"

Sammy glanced up at him over the book and frowned thoughtfully. 

“I still feel fake. I can tell that something’s off. Something’s wrong. I feel broken.” He got up and circled around to sit closer to Dean. “I feel less and less like me. I don’t think we broke in half evenly,” he added in a whisper, checking to make sure that they were still alone. 

Dean turned on his chair to face Sam, sighing.

"Of course something's off," he said quietly, "You've only got half a soul in there. We don't know how this works – maybe he got some personality traits and you got some others? You're both definitely SAM, but you're right, you're not identical."

“We really are like twins,” Sam said thoughtfully. “We think alike and obviously look alike. We both like the same things.” He gestured to his coffee. His expression suddenly grew sad though as he stared down into his cup. “…As terrible as some of those things are.” He shook it off and sipped the coffee, glancing at Dean and fidgeting. 

"Today's the one day I won't make fun of you for eating so much salad," Dean replied drolly, patting his shoulder. Hey, salad was terrible. He was a bit curious what his brother had actually been implying, though. He made it sound worse, somehow.

“Uh, thanks,” Sam said slowly. 

After a moment, the other Sam came into the room, Castiel in tow. 

“This is ridiculous. How is it so easy to split myself in half when it’s practically impossible to put me back together?” He sat down at the table too, waving to Dean and the other him. 

Dean picked up his coffee and took another sip, waving at him.

Castiel stepped around to where the pajama-wearing Sam had been sitting earlier, taking his chair.

"This may be more serious than I thought," he said grimly, eying both Sams. "A human soul is not meant to be split apart. The power is usually contained..."

Dean looked at his brothers worriedly, too.

"What're you saying?"

Cas sighed. 

"I can't tell the state of their souls just by looking at them. I would have to touch them, feel for frayed edges," he said reluctantly.

Oh, right. Dean forgot he could do that most of the time. It wasn't exactly a fun time for anybody involved, though.

Dean was surprised that the Sams we silently showing each other their phone. The one in regular clothes pointed and nodded, meeting the other’s gaze. 

“It should be you,” the one in pajamas whispered in reply. “We can’t both—” 

“Shh,” Sam hissed, noticing the pause in conversation and tucking the phone away quickly. 

For once, Cas's suspicious squinting look didn't seem at all out of place. Dean frowned at his brothers, too, sitting up.

"You can't both what, exactly? Who keeps texting you?"

He'd thought maybe it was Cas earlier, but with the angel sitting right across from him, clearly it wasn't.

“Um.” Both of the Sams looked at each other for a cue, then back to Dean. 

“We had a date. I. I had a date,” the normally dressed Sam explained awkwardly, looking at his twin again. 

“Yeah. We’ll just cancel though,” the other said with a forced smile. 

“I mean, this kind of takes priority.” 

“Yep,” the Sam in pajamas added quickly. “Kinda need a soul to date someone!” 

They both stared at each other nervously and then back to Dean again. 

Wow. They both sucked at lying. 

"How dumb do you think I am?" Dean asked flatly, raising his eyebrows. "Suddenly you're doing the Parent Trap crap where you finish each other's sentences now? The soul bit that's good at lying must be floating around somewhere, because it's not in either of you."

Cas, meanwhile, looked kind of sad at the comment about needing a soul to date anyone. Angels didn't have souls. Dean felt a little bad for him, but he was too busy confronting his little brothers to comment. Somebody was texting them – and even though they seemed to hate each other, they were sharing the texts!

“Fine,” pajama Sam groaned, propping his head up on his hand. He didn’t add any other comment, instead gesturing to the other him. 

“No,” Sammy said, shaking his head. They looked at each other and the one in the pajamas frowned. 

“Okay. Are we sticking with a date thing?” 

“Yep.” The other Sam crossed his arms. “It’s not as important as getting me back into one piece. It can wait.” 

“Debatable,” the other mumbled under his breath, taking another sip of his coffee as Sam glared at him. 

There they went, right back to fighting. 

Dean crossed his arms, shaking his head. Sadly, they seemed more honest when they disliked each other.

"Fine. Can you put the damn phone away so we can focus on fixing this, then?"

He wasn't sure they'd even heard Cas's comment about touching souls. A cheesy pun about Touched By an Angel came to mind, and he snorted a little, which...probably didn't look as stern as he was trying for. Whatever. It had been a weird day.

“At least text him back,” PJ Sam said with a frown. 

“Shut up.” The regular Sam sighed, pulling the phone out of his pocket to send a text. As soon as he was finished, he looked right at Dean while putting it back into his pocket. He propped his elbows on the table. “Okay. Any ideas?” 

Dean caught the 'him' and quirked an eyebrow. He wasn't judging, but he'd been pretty sure the mystery date was a woman. Did guys really text back and forth that much? He sure as hell didn't, he liked to hear a voice on the line.

Sam WAS kind of a nerd, though.

Cas glanced at Dean and got a nod to continue with what he'd been saying – finally. 

The angel still seemed kind of sad about the soul comment, but told the two Sams, "I need to examine your soul. It's not two souls, it's one soul ripped to pieces, and the pieces may have...edges. Edges that can hurt you."

“But you said that we seemed like we were okay,” the Sammy in PJs said, gesturing between him and his twin. 

“I say we focus on fixing this. No soul-touching,” the other one added with a frown. His phone hummed as another message came in. He didn’t reach to get it, though, keeping his gaze on Cas. 

"Touching a human's soul is dangerous unless done very carefully," the angel sighed. "I wouldn't suggest it unless it was important."

He paused and gave each Sam an intent, squinting look. 

"...Your soul already had so much damage done to it, Sam, that dividing it could be more than it can withstand. Please."

Dean felt kind of guilty for caring about the text messages when Cas made it sound like the Sams might be in real danger. He was damned curious what guy his brother was texting, though.

"Just get it over with. Cas's the closest we've got to a soul expert," he pointed out grumpily.

“Fine!” Both Sams sighed, looking at each other in defeat. The one in normal clothes nodded to Cas. 

“You wanna?”

Pajama Sam looked at him intently and then Castiel. 

“Who do you want to, uh, touch first?”

"The order doesn't matter. You," Cas replied, correctly guessing that if he left it up to them he was only asking for another argument. He waved the Sam in pajamas after him and trudged over to the nearest chair. "You'll want to sit down."

Dean turned to the Sam dressed in regular clothes.

"Hey, can we talk a minute? Let's go make coffee or something."

The Sam in pajamas took a seat as suggested, watching the other him sadly.

“Y-yeah,” Sam agreed quickly, already heading toward the kitchen. He glanced back only once to give the other Sam a pitying look before disappearing into the kitchen.


	4. Soul Squares

Dean sighed and followed Sam into the kitchen, glancing at the other Sam on the way, too. This was one of the few chances he had to talk to one Sam without the other showing up.

The coffee pot was empty. Between the Sams they had managed to drink it all during the hours of research. Fat lot of good that did.

He got out the can of coffee and replaced the filter, spooning more grounds into the machine.

"So..."

“So?” Sam said, watching the door like it might leap off its hinges and attack him. He seemed so on edge…but why? They were in the bunker. One of the safest places on Earth. Maybe he really didn’t trust his other half. Again, Dean was glad he took that knife away. 

Closing the lid on the coffee machine, Dean hit the button. Then he turned to Sam, frowning.

"Really? C'mon, Sammy. I'm not dumb."

“What?” Sam raised an eyebrow at him. He crossed his arms and shrugged. “I’m not hiding anything.”

Dean leaned back against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms too. He gave Sam a long, knowing look.

"Right," he said, in the least-convinced tone possible. "Hey, you never told me why you assumed I'd kick your ass if I found out about this mess."

“I thought you’d be pissed I was doing spell stuff without you.” Sammy sighed and leaned his hands back on the counter, frowning again. “I thought it was a simple one. Nothing about demons or angels. Why the hell can’t Cas fix this?” The last was said more to himself than to Dean. 

Sam’s phone started ringing suddenly. With a growl of annoyance, the taller brother dug it out to press ignore. Whoever it was, they were persistent. 

Dean didn't bother asking about the caller. Sam clearly didn't want him to know. Instead he focused on the bubbling brew coming out of the coffee pot, watching the carafe slowly filling up.

"Souls aren't supposed to get split in half, that's why," he grumbled. "Cas's never seen a soul get split up, how would he know how to hook it back together? He's an angel, not a magician."

There were soft footsteps from the doorway. Speak of the devil. Angel? Technically the devil WAS an angel... Not important, Dean told himself wearily. Cas was standing in the kitchen doorway, and the furrow in his brow did not look like good news.

"I need the other Sam now," he said evenly.

The Sam in pajamas followed him in, hugging himself and looking more than a little pale. 

“Thought that’d take longer.” Sam pushed off of the counter and stepped over to the angel.

Dean waved the pajama-wearing Sam over to stand with him by the coffee machine.

"Any idea how bad their whole situation is yet?" He asked Cas worriedly.

"I need to examine both of them before I can tell." The angel's expression was impossible to read, but the grim solemn manner wasn't exactly reassuring.

The Sams passed each other grimly, again exchanging a look. The Sam that Dean had been talking to paused, handing the phone off to his lookalike.

“Just in case.”

PJ Sam took the phone tiredly, joining Dean at the counter.

Dean watched as Castiel escorted his brother out the door, then turned to his brother by the counter. Two Sams still definitely did not feel normal.

"Fresh pot of coffee," he offered, nodding at the machine. He was curious what Cas had found out, but the angel probably didn't tell this Sam any more than he'd told the rest of them.

Sam was looking at the phone, eyebrows pinched together sadly. He glanced when Dean spoke and nodded his head slowly.

“Smells great.”

Dean got out a couple of mugs and poured them each some coffee. He added two more empty mugs to the counter for Cas and the other Sam once they returned. It felt like they'd be having a meeting after this soul exam thing.

"Listen, Sammy..." He handed the other filled mug to his brother, sighing. "I know somebody's been calling and texting you. It's pretty damn obvious you don't want me to know who, but I do need to know at least one thing about it."

“No. We can’t talk about it. Other me said so and I agree,” Sam explained quickly, picking the steaming cup of coffee up. He held it shakily, along with the phone, taking a seat on the floor of all places. He sighed as he settled and closed his eyes. “And, yes, it’s actually a date.” 

Dean blinked at the floor-sitting, then shrugged and grabbed his coffee mug, settling down next to Sam. He leaned back against the counter, taking a sip of coffee.

"Just tell me whoever this is isn't part of the whole soul banana split deal. If he is then he's part of how to fix it, probably."

The brunette sighed again and shook his head. 

“No. He’s not part of it. He’s just pissed we — I — stood him up. Again.” He took a long drink from his cup and then looked at Dean. “Wow. No comment on the whole ‘it’s a guy’ thing?”

Dean shrugged, trying to keep the worry off of his face. It felt like he was failing a bit at that.

"I'm not judgin'. I mean, whatever floats your boat," he replied awkwardly, looking down into his coffee. He could feel his cheeks getting hot. Changing the subject would've seemed way too obvious, so he settled for taking a big swig of the coffee and pretending it wasn't too hot to swig.

“Don’t burn yourself, jeez!” Sam sat his own cup of coffee on the floor next to him and finally looked at his phone. It buzzed angrily with a new text and he sighed. 

Dean coughed a little on the hot coffee, glancing at the phone with a frown.

"What is he, a stalker? He's blowin' up your phone."

Dean’s little brother looked at him sidelong. 

“We’ve been dating for a few months and I’ve been ignoring him for three days. He’s not happy. But what the hell are we supposed to do? I can’t send half of me out there to see him!” He frowned. “Well. Maybe.” 

"Months. Wow," Dean commented, looking at his coffee again. How had he not noticed? It was his job to keep an eye on his brother and he’d had no idea. "He, uh. He a hunter, or know about it at least? You could tell him you're working a case, it's basically turning into one."

“He’s knows what we are. It’s sort of…making things really complicated.” Sam picked his coffee back up and sipped it. He stared sleepily at the door. “He thinks I dumped him and I don’t know if I should tell him otherwise. I need to talk to, uh, Sam.” 

So it was a man who knew about hunters, knew about the supernatural, and was technically Sam's ex? Who the hell was this guy? Dean scowled at his coffee, opening his mouth to reply. Before he could, though, footsteps sounded from the door.

Cas stepped into the kitchen this time, heading straight for the coffee pot. He looked unhappy.

Dean hopped to his feet so fast he nearly spilled his coffee, turning to grab the angel's arm.

"So?"

The other Sam trailed in after him, lacking his jacket and looking none to pleased. 

PJ Sam got up from the floor and waved to his twin. The Sams stepped closer and the one in pajamas showed him the phone. 

They didn’t seem too concerned with what Cas had to say. 

Dean glanced back at them, frowning, then turned to Cas again.

"The whole soul touching thing gave you SOMETHING to work with, right?" He asked. Did nobody else care? Cas was pouring himself a cup of coffee!

"It didn't improve the situation any," the angel replied, turning more toward him and the Sams. He looked at Dean grimly. "They don't seem in any danger – no fraying edges – but now I know that their soul is not evenly split."

“So I’m right,” Sam said, looking at them suddenly. He pointed to PJ Sam. “I’m more real than him.” 

“Hey,” the other one growled. “My piece of our soul is real. It’s just smaller.” 

“I knew it! I could feel it,” Sam said, putting a hand on his chest. “I’m me!” 

“So am I—” 

“You’re a fragment. We just need to take the piece out of you and put it back in me,” Sam said, pacing away from his twin. But the other Sam grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around. 

“I’m not a fragment! I’m YOU. It’s not my fault you hate yourself!” 

“I don’t hate myself — I hate you!” Sam yanked his shoulder free, pushing PJ Sam away. “You’ve been playing Dean since you saw him. You’re acting like you’re hurt so he’ll take your side!” 

Gritting his teeth, the Sam in pajamas slugged his duplicate square in the nose. 

Dean stared at them, startled at just how fast they'd jumped to fighting again.

"HEY! Cut it out!" He moved to get between them, but Cas beat him to it – literally pushing the two Sams apart and keeping them at arms' length.

"You're BOTH Sam," the angel told them, frowning. "No part of you is false."

“I think I can live without that part!” Sam snapped, turning and stomping out of the door. “And stay the Hell away from my brother!”

“He’s my brother too, asshole!” Pajama Sam hollered after him, shaking his now-sore hand.

Cas let go of the remaining Sam's shoulder, looking glum. 

"I didn't mean one of you has less of your soul than the other, Sam. The pieces that you have are...are different shapes. That's the best way that I can describe it," he sighed.

Dean stuck his coffee mug on the counter, looking after the other Sam who had stormed from the room.

"Do you really hate yourself this much? Jeez."

“You'd argue with yourself too,” Sam grumbled. He shoved the cell phone into his pocket and rubbed his forehead. “Sorry, Cas. Different shapes?”

The angel was studying him again, probably looking at his soul rather than his face.

"Yes. A soul isn't meant to be divided," he explained, reaching for Sam's hand. "You remember what it was like to be soulless – it doesn't take away your personality or sense of self, but it affects your ability to discern right and wrong. Your soul determines your entire concept of morality."

Dean fidgeted, wondering where the other Sam had gone. Probably had a sore face after a punch like that.

"What I mean when I say your soul is unevenly split," Cas continued, placing his hand over Sam's as he held it, "is that you each will handle some things like you have a soul, and some like you don't. Different things for each of you, because the other has that part of your soul."

Dean watched the blue-white glow surround their hands as Cas healed Sam. He made a mental note to get Cas to heal the other Sam's face later. Wouldn't want to play favorites.

"Likely you feel incomplete, or confused about what to feel about some things," Cas concluded, meeting the pajama-clad Sam's eyes. "Does that sound accurate?"

Sam stared at the angel, eyes wide. 

“Yes. Wow. That’s not good.” He pulled the cell phone out of his pocket again and held it up. “So…unless my feelings changed drastically in the last two days, the other me has the part of my soul that feels affection.” He glanced to Dean. “I mean, I feel like I love you guys, but it’s more memory than anything. Like nostalgia or something.” 

Cas tilted his head, looking a bit surprised to be included in even the nostalgia where love was concerned.

Dean, meanwhile, was squinting at his brother like the angel usually did.

"So...souls are like quilts? This Sam gets the 'killing is wrong' square, that Sam gets the 'how to love' square? And you guys get the same number of squares but there's no two squares alike," he mused, crossing his arms. "Well, great, you're both not exactly all there, then."

The phone in Sam’s hand buzzed and he tucked it away again. Slowly, his frown faded to concern. 

“Uh. We better find the other me. If it was me and I thought an impostor me had you guys on his side, I’d find help. Possibly…demonic help.”

Dean's eyebrows shot up.

"Like who? Crowley? It's not like we've been locking you guys up or trying to hurt either of you," he pointed out, frowning and starting for the kitchen door. "Stay with Cas, I'll go see if other you's still here."

“I’ll make another pot of coffee,” Sam called after him. “Be careful!”

"Dean..." Cas sounded like he wanted to protest, but Dean hurried out into the other rooms of the bunker before he could say much.

What a mess...


	5. Mystery Boyfriend

If the quilt explanation was accurate, then they needed every last bit of soul both of the Sams had in order to remake one complete Sam. No wonder they were acting so unstable, though, if some decisions were affected by the soul and some were not.

"Sam? Hey, where'd you go?" Dean called, frowning and glancing around the bunker main room.

“What?” Came the grouchy reply from somewhere in the direction of Sam’s room.

Relieved, Dean hurried that way, knocking lightly on the door before he poked his head inside.

"You missed the second half of Cas's whole soul explanation."

His little brother was sitting on the bed, a bloodstained T-shirt on one side and a spell book on the other. Sam looked at him tiredly. 

“My soul is ripped up and part of it is in the evil me.” Sam flipped through the book and looked up at Dean. “Anything else?” 

Stepping inside, Dean seated himself on the edge of the bed.

"Not evil, but it probably looks like it when you guys look at each other." He looked over at his brother. Was there a bruise forming on his face already?

"...Cas says your soul's like a quilt. There's different squares for different things, like affection or a sense of guilt or whatever. You got half the squares and the other you got the other half, but you're both operating with half of your squares missing. So nothing he does makes any sense to you, probably."

“He’s a sociopath! He’s playing all sick and weak so you’ll protect him! Did touching our soul ‘squares’ help?” Sam scowled and sat his book aside. 

"It wouldn't seem so much like playing favorites if I didn't have to stop you from offing him every five minutes," Dean pointed out dryly. He sighed.

"Look, I'm sorry. Now that I know about the squares thing I'll be on my guard. He reminds me of you when you had no soul, though — he's not EVIL, he's just got no moral compass. I mean, he told me and Cas he remembers loving us but doesn't right now, which means YOU got that square."

“HE punched ME. Okay?” Sam leaned closer, eyebrows lowering. He shook his head and felt his swollen upper lip. His expression softened and he sighed deeply. “I know the other me isn’t evil. He just…he just gets on my nerves. Constantly. It’s like watching yourself do stupid things and having no control over it!” He flopped back onto the bed, frowning a bit. “I got the love square? Huh.” 

Dean shrugged. 

"Yeah. I'd say you two just don't talk until this all blows over, and trust me and Cas to take care of it, but probably only one of you got the trust square." He mustered a small smile at his own stupid joke, shaking his head. "That and there's only one phone and one mystery boyfriend you both think of as yours."

Sam sat up sharply and looked at Dean with wide eyes. Oh, right, Dean had only actually discussed the boyfriend with the Pajama-clad Sam…

“Right. Mine.” This Sam stood and walked right out the door without further comment.

Dean quickly fell into step beside his brother, smiling a lot more easily now. If this Sam got the love bit of their soul, whatever he said about the boyfriend must be genuine.

It wasn't that weird to imagine Sammy with another guy when he considered the idea. Sam happy and with anybody was an improvement – anybody he got serious about in the past had a pretty tragic end.

"So, you and the mystery guy," he ventured, still smiling. "You seem pretty serious about him after a few months. Willing to fight for him and all that...good sign."

He wondered if his lack of a reaction before came across as judgmental to his brother. He really didn't have a problem with this, especially if the guy knew about the supernatural and could defend himself in a fight.

Sam looked over at him, expression growing sad. He slowed his pace as they walked back down the hall. 

“I was actually going to…let him go. Look at everyone you or I have ever been with. It always ends horribly. I don’t want that for him — as inevitable as it is.” 

"Yeah?" Dean felt guilty, for some reason. Sam didn't SAY his reasoning had anything to do with his brother's opinion, but what if it was?

He stopped in the hallway, studying the toes of his boots.

"Is that why you never introduced me to him...?"

Sam laughed, but it was humorless. He shook his head and bit his lip, glancing at Dean shyly. 

“You’d hate him.” Sniffling a little, Sam continued on and ducked into the kitchen.

Dean blinked and looked after him for a moment before following. So it WAS about how he'd react, then. Sam was going to break up with this guy and lose a chance to be happy because of him.

He had to make that right, but first they had to get the two Sams issue worked out. He'd talk to Sam about the boyfriend again after that, he promised himself. In the meantime, he'd have to figure out some way for his brothers, plural, not to contact the mystery guy and break up with him while they weren't right in the head...  


* * *

  
The candles around them flickered as the Sams took their seats between Dean and Cas in the big elaborate spell circle. The Sam in the button up leaned to peek at the tome that Cas held, frowning. 

“Do we really have to hold hands?” 

"Yes," the angel replied flatly. Dean could tell he was a little exasperated with the two Sams fighting and giving each other glares all the time.

Cas sighed, though, giving each of Dean's brothers an apologetic look in turn. "This may be uncomfortable, but I won't try anything that would harm you. Please just follow my instructions."

Dean held out his hands, smiling at the Sam in the PJs since he was nearest. 

"Kumbaya time, let's do this." for some reason Cas said he had to do the hand holding, too. Maybe because they were family.

Grimacing in unison, both Sams reached to take Dean’s hands first. The Sam in regular clothes reached and took hold of his pajama-clad twin’s hand with a sigh. 

“Where’d you put the phone?” 

“Shh.” The Sam in pajamas closed his eyes and took a slow deep breath. Sammy scowled at him, squeezing Dean’s hand tightly. 

“Did you text him?” Sam asked in a whisper. 

“SHH,” PJ Sam hissed. 

“Hey, if you texted him, you should have run it by me first—” 

PJ Sam’s eyes snapped open. 

“Look, that ship has sailed.” 

Sam let go of his twin’s hand and grabbed the front of his shirt. 

“What the hell does that mean? What did you do!?” 

Dean let go of the hand he'd still been holding, blinking and sitting up. 

"Hey guys, settle down! You shouldn't make any big decisions with half a soul, you should probably turn the phone off 'til you're fixed!"

Castiel looked at the Sams dubiously, then shot Dean a questioning look. Nobody had really explained the whole boyfriend thing to him yet, had they?

“I didn’t do anything. We haven’t texted him in DAYS. Do you really think that he’s okay with that? Did you actually READ his texts?” 

“Where the hell’s the phone?” Sam growled, shaking his lookalike. 

“IN OUR ROOM!” PJ Sam snapped in reply, yanking Sam’s hand free of his shirt and holding it again. “Let’s just do the spell already!” 

“Fine,” Sam muttered, holding his hand out to Dean again. 

Rather than take his hand, Dean jumped to his feet.

"Uh, hold that thought. Gotta pee," he said quickly, hurrying out the door with an apologetic look at Cas. The angel was back to exasperated again.

Cas could babysit the Sams for two minutes, though; this was the perfect opportunity to keep Sam from breaking up with his guy until he was reassembled! The Sams had just said they hadn't actually texted the guy in days, and they'd outright stated where the phone was. He wouldn't get another chance this good.

A quick sprint down the hallway and a few turns later, he'd snatched up Sam's phone from the bed stand and retreated to the bathroom.

Flushing the phone down the toilet was PROBABLY a bad idea with the bunker's very old plumbing, so instead he gave it a good stomp to crack the screen, then stuck it in the sink and ran the water until it was submerged. If it managed to live through that, he'd concede that smartphones weren't as sissy and delicate as he'd thought.

A quick flush of the toilet and wash of his hands to sell it with the smell of hand soap, and Dean rushed back to the room, trying not to look like he'd just flat-out ran across half of the bunker.

Both Sams were where he had left them, but they weren’t holding hands. They were having a very intense silent conversation, with little head nods and weird looks. Was this how Sam was inside of his head? Good grief.

Cas had taken a seat at the edge of the circle in front of them, holding the book and watching their silent communication thoughtfully.

"Sorry," Dean said sheepishly, stepping back over to sit with his brothers. He offered his hands to each of them, smiling. "We ready to do this?"

"If you'll all hold hands, yes," Castiel said, looking grateful that he was back.

Both Sams took his hands again and each other’s without a fuss. The Sam in pajamas took a deep breath and the other Sam followed his lead, both closing their eyes. 

“Let’s do this,” the Sam in the button up mumbled. 

Dean squeezed each of their hands, nodding.

"Rock and roll, Cas."

He closed his eyes, too.

It was about then that he realized he'd never heard Cas chant Latin before. Or do witchcraft, for that matter. The chanted Latin and glowing light on the backs of his eyelids told him that the angel had a clue how to cast a spell, though. This was fine, it would turn out fine. Cas had to be at least PRETTY sure it would work, or he wouldn't try it...

Right?

There was a loud whooshing sound, like a gust of wind, and abruptly the room fell dark and silent. An acrid singed smoky smell filled the air. Somewhere ahead of them, Cas sighed.

Dean opened his eyes, glancing around. All of the candles had been blown out...and there was still a Sam sitting on either side of him.

Pajama Sam looked back at Dean, frowning. 

“Nothing?” He looked at Cas. “I was pretty sure that one would work.” 

“Cas?” The other Sammy asked, also looking at the angel. 

Dean looked at Cas finally as well, and blinked at the glowing blue pinpoints watching them.

"Whoa. Cas?" That was kind of eerie. Cas's eyes lit up some of his face, they glowed so bright.

The angel blinked and the glow quickly faded away to nothing.

"I'm sorry," he sighed. "There isn't a spell actually made for this – for souls."

“It’s okay, Cas,” Sam sighed, leaning to pat the angel’s shoulder. 

“Yeah, thanks for trying,” the Sam in PJs said, also reaching to pat the angel on the other shoulder. “Back to the books I guess.” 

“You guys do that, I need to talk to…you know who.” Sam got up and headed for the door, but the Sam in pajamas hopped up to run after him. 

“No, you don’t! Dean’s right. We need to talk to him when we’re ourself again.” 

The other Sam turned back to frown at him. Then he shook his head. 

“I have to talk to him.” 

“He’s not going anywhere. Let’s fix us first—” 

“No, it’s not fair to just ignore him!” 

“It’s also not fair to send HALF of us to talk to him! You keep acting like I’m the messed up one, but you aren’t thinking straight either. I have half your squares, remember?” 

“I have the important ones!” 

"Who are they talking about?" Cas asked Dean, trying to speak quietly. Getting to his feet, Dean stepped out of the circle and offered the angel a hand up from the floor.

"Sammy's got a boyfriend," he leaned close and whispered. "Touchy subject, I wouldn't go there."

Cas shot the Sams a worried look.

"I see. We need to fix this quickly, then." He stepped past the two Sams, the spell book under his arm. "I'll find another spell to try," he announced to the room, then trudged a bit glumly off down the hallway.

Dean had to wonder if Sam having a boyfriend bothered him somehow, with that reaction.

As soon as Castiel passed them, pajama Sam shoved his twin. They had kept arguing while Dean and Cas talked, but it was going about as well as usual. 

It was gonna be a long day. 

...Especially once they realized what Dean had done to their phone.


	6. Hell Comes Knocking

Hell needed to put in more cell towers.

Crowley had lost count of how many times he'd checked his phone in the past 72 hours, but it was safely in the hundreds. He'd sent dozens of texts, and nothing – not one single reply. Attempts to call rang a few times and went to that cute voicemail message about how he was calling the FBI.

Or at least, it HAD rang. Today, as if being blatantly ignored wasn't insulting enough, the call went straight to the voicemail box.

“He turned his phone OFF?” The paper-pushing demon who sat off to the right of the throne flinched at his tone of voice, but he didn't care. The King of Hell wasn't so easy to ignore, and he was going to go tell Sam “Moose” Winchester that to his bloody handsome perfect face.

Teleporting to Sam seemed to have some kind of ward in the way, though. What, did he just want to cut Crowley out entirely?

The demon growled and crushed the phone in his hand, throwing it across the throne room. Little bits of plastic flew all over, and the battery bounced off of the cowering paper pusher's head.

"I'm going out," he told his assistant, getting to his feet. He'd go to the Winchesters' little bunker first and he WOULD find Sam...whether Sam wanted him to or not.

In the blink of an eye, Crowley stood in front of the Men of Letter bunker's well-fortified front door. He and Sam had been VERY discreet about their...entanglement...thus far, but now that the gorgeous hazel-eyed brunette (sigh) had slighted him, he didn't give a damn if Dean found out.

He rapped loudly on the door and waited. Causing a scene sounded like fun. Maybe there would be tears.

There was no immediate response. In fact, it took almost a full minute before he could make out the sound of someone coming up the steps inside. 

After another annoyingly long moment, the bunker door’s lock clanked open and he was standing face to face with Sam. 

The brunette looked as gorgeous as always. His hair was tousled and he was just wearing blue pajama pants and a thin white t-shirt that hugged his muscular torso quite snugly. 

Without so much as a comment, he shut the door again. 

Really? REALLY...? After three days without so much as an EMOJI in reply, Sam had the gall to slam the door in his face?

Gritting his teeth, the demon slammed a palm up against the door, watching it buckle and fold in in the middle. A good (and kind of stress-relieving) kick and the metal flew off of its hinges, skidding ten feet down the hallway.

"Don't make me HUNT you, Moose!" Crowley hollered down the hall, balling his hands into fists. The bunker wasn't warded against demons being IN it, exactly, but the entrance way was pretty well coated in sigils. He knew for a fact that there was a great big Devil's Trap painted on the ceiling, for one.

Sam had ducked off to the side of the hall and looked none too pleased with him. 

“Hunt me?” He sighed, pushing off of the wall to come stand just a few feet inside of the doorway. He watched Crowley evenly. “Sam!” 

“Shut up!” Came a familiar voice from down the stairs. After a moment, another version of Sam came charging up the steps, glancing nervously over his shoulder. “Dean's probably on his way up here!” 

The new Sam (who was dressed in a wine red flannel pajama set) stopped sharply when he saw Crowley in the door. 

The first Sam gestured pointedly. 

“You wanted to talk to him. Go for it.” 

The vision of Sam in his tight T-shirt had made Crowley pause for a moment – and now the DOUBLE vision of him, standing there in two distinct outfits, was not helping any furious tirades come to mind. He made that wine red set look good, too.

Just barely resisting the impulse to slap himself back to his senses, the demon stood up straight and glanced quickly between the Sams, studying their faces and clothes.

They looked like identical twins. Moose twins...now THAT was a tantalizing thought. Unfortunately, he knew for a fact that there was only one great big beautiful lumbering pile of flannel besides Dean, so something must be terribly wrong here.

As fun as it was being surrounded by gorgeous giants, Crowley crossed his arms and put on a scowl.

"Explain."

The Sam wearing the sexy red pajamas stepped up dangerously close, hugging his arms around his stomach. 

“Uh…where do I start?” He said sadly, eyebrows pinching. 

“At the ‘we can’t tell Dean’ part,” the other Sam said in a hiss, keeping an eye on the hall and stairs behind them. 

“Crowley, I c-cast a spell and it — it…” The Sam in red stammered, moving closer still. 

“It split us in half and we’ve been trying to put ourselves back together,” the Sam in blue PJs chimed in quickly. 

“That’s why I haven’t texted you!” 

The sad hazel eyes were almost unbearable up close, and they both smelled like fresh shampoo and a hint of that downright sinful cologne he'd wear when they would...

No, no, Crowley told himself, blinking to try and break the spell. Sam being split into two people OUGHT to have overridden any other thoughts. Easier said than done.

"Really. So why did you only turn the phone off today?" he replied, and it took serious effort to sound annoyed by now. "It sent me straight to your bloody voicemail, that HAD to be on purpose!"

He was more intrigued than angry now, his mind already running through ways he could use this. Two Sams...TWO Sams...oh, the possibilities.

A metallic click echoed down the hallway, and suddenly he found it easy to feel annoyed again. Dean had arrived, because of course he did. His brother was rarely able to walk around without him showing up.

"Who's there, Sammy?" Apparently he'd noticed the blown-off door and drawn his gun.

“Please don’t tell about us,” Sam whispered sadly, before he turned to face his brother. He dropped his arms to his side and cleared his throat. “It’s just Crowley.” 

The demon uncrossed his arms and put on a nonchalant look as Dean stepped into view and lowered his gun. The older Winchester frowned and gestured to the door.

"What the hell? You could've just called us."

Glancing at the two Sams, who both were looking absolutely, gorgeously disheveled – and nervous, also nervous, nervous was the important part – the King of Hell smirked.

"Wouldn't have been as much fun," he told Dean mildly. "I hear you have a magic problem, and I may be able to assist with it."

"Wow, word travels fast in a warded bunker," Dean replied dryly, tucking his gun away and crossing his arms.

Crowley tilted his head, shooting him a knowing look.

"I have my ways," he said sweetly. "Aren't you and Moose and Moose going to invite me in? I came all this way from Hell."

“Come on in,” the Sam in red said, beckoning Crowley inside. His twin came closer and took his arm, keeping him at a distance from the King of Hell. 

“We should get Cas.” 

They looked at each other and the one in blue nodded pointedly. The other one imitated him. 

“Yeah. You should.” 

“No, WE should,” the blue Sam said slowly. “Come on.” He dragged his lookalike along towards the stairs. They ducked past Dean and started down the steps, arm in arm. 

Crowley stepped very carefully around the area of the Devil's Trap and followed the Sams. He caught Dean watching them pass with a look of annoyance and then turning to poke at the battered door. Maybe he'd stay there for a minute and give them time to talk.

The Sams were talking as they padded down the steps, hissing back and forth in some very quiet argument. 

“You lost it!” 

“I didn’t lose it! It was on the bed stand. I put it there right before the ceremony.” Their voices dropped low again and then they both slowly turned to glance at Dean with suspicion. 

Sam's brother – their brother, at the moment – was picking up the heavy metal bunker door and dragging it over to lean in place, swearing about demons under his breath.

Crowley couldn't help a small smirk at that, but he was distracted again by the sight of the two Sams. They hadn't seen each other in days, the longest time apart in months.

All he wanted to do right now was press up close and run his fingers through that perfect long hair, kiss the tall man senseless, and retreat somewhere Dean couldn't reach. Except now he wasn't sure which Sam to focus on first, and he doubted the other would forgive him if he did.

"Moose," he whispered, looking at them both thoughtfully. "You said Feathers is here, too?"

Two sets of shiny, hazel eyes were suddenly pointed his way. The Sam wearing blue spoke up first. 

“He’s helping us reverse this. He said our souls weren’t fraying. So…that’s good I guess.” 

“You look great,” the other added in a whisper. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call you—” 

“Shh!” The other Sam nudged his shoulder. 

One Sam seemed much softer than the other, somehow. Crowley didn't let it show on his face, but he was pleased to hear that at least one of the Sams seemed to miss the sight of him, too.

"He won't trust me to try and fix this spellwork," he murmured to the boys, referring to Castiel. He placed a hand on each of their arms, glancing back the way they had come. Dean hadn't followed yet; must be still messing with the broken door. Convenient. "Why don't we go somewhere with less watching eyes...?"

“God yes,” the Sam in red breathed, moving to hug him. An arm shot out and then the other Sam was pulling him away. 

“We can’t let Dean know about the two of us! Three of us! Whatever!” He growled, checking that their brother was still at the door. 

“Then why don’t you go and distract him?” The one in red snapped back, shoving his twin away. 

With a huff of annoyance, the blue pajama Sam crossed his arms. 

“You know why.” 

“Yes, but we’re not doing that right now. Okay?” 

Eyes narrowing, the Sam in blue didn’t reply, instead dragging his feet as he headed back down the hall to Dean. 

Crowley watched him go, bemused. He was a demon, he wasn't supposed to feel a lick of guilt that THAT Sam was going to be without any attention while this one was here with him. Alone. Yet it tugged at his chest in a strange way. He shouldn't care. Why did he care?

Realizing he'd been standing there for a long moment in silence, the King of Hell turned to the remaining Sam and took both of his hands.

"You could have called," he said, studying the brunette's larger hands in his own. "I would have understood being split in half, you know."

He thought he heard voices down the hallway. Dean and the other Sam talking, probably.

“It’s not an even split,” Sam replied softly, stepping closer and squeezing Crowley’s hands. “He got parts of my soul that handle some emotions and I got the others. If either of us had talked to you, it wouldn’t really have been me. Just like right now,” he added solemnly. 

“This sounds like you,” Crowley murmured, raising one hand up to run through Sam's hair. He smiled, letting his fingers brush the side of the taller man's neck, and leaned close to place a kiss there as well. Cologne and shampoo and aftershave all mingled with the scent of Sam, and he was badly tempted to take them away somewhere alone, other Sam and discretion be damned. Instead he looked up at the man before him and smirked a little. “It certainly FEELS like you.”

Sam gave him a small, sad smile. Those shiny hazel eyes caught his gaze and then Sam was leaning down to kiss him, a hand catching the demon’s chin. The kiss was just long enough to risk them being seen, but it felt like Sam was hesitant to end it. 

Luckily for them, Squirrel was still busy cussing and fixing the door with the other Sam. 

“I’m serious. I missed you so much.” He stepped closer and Crowley was suddenly caught in the big brunette’s fantastically muscular arms. Sam pulled him closer and sighed. “God, you smell amazing,” he breathed against the demon’s ear. 

Crowley sighed and leaned against him. This was horribly unfair – if he did much more than kiss either Sam, they would remember it once they were back together.

"Sorry about the door," he said, sitting up and looking the brunette in the eyes. "The other you slammed it in my face."

He didn't bother to sound annoyed about it; any anger at being ignored had dissolved after a few kisses. He didn't want to admit it, but he HAD missed Sam. Hell was mind-numbing without their sneaky secret meetings to look forward to.

“It’s okay,” Sam whispered, pressing a little kiss to Crowley’s cheek too. “Dean’ll fix it.” 

A hand slapped onto his shoulder and there was suddenly space between the two of them. The other Sam pushed them apart, snagging his twin around the waist. 

“What the hell are you DOING?” He hissed to the Sam in red. 

“Why aren’t you distracting Dean?” 

“Shh!” The Sam in the blue pajamas growled, dragging the other along with him toward the steps. 

Crowley frowned after the bickering Sams, glancing back toward the door. Sure enough, Dean was following close behind the Sam in blue.


	7. Lies, Lies, Lies

Dean shot the demon a withering look, probably over the broken door.

"Do you actually have a clue how to fix this, or are you just here to be a pain in the ass?"

"Ideally both," Crowley said sweetly, smiling at him. "I'm an overachiever." He turned and stepped after the Moose twins, turning over the situation in his head now that he wasn't...distracted.

Sam had somehow done this on his own, so it shouldn't take any great power to undo it. In theory. He had a nagging feeling that he'd be spending a lot of time here before it was all sorted, though. He could see souls, and the Sams weren't lying – they each had roughly half of a soul's power inside.

Sam and Sam walked on ahead. The one in blue still had an arm around his twin’s waist and seemed to be guiding him while they argued under their breathes. 

They led the way downstairs and into the main room with the glowing map-topped table. It was piled high in books and note pads. A couple of empty cups of coffee sat along one side of the book piles. The Sams parted ways. The one in red left the room down a hallway and the one in blue pajamas took a seat at the table. He watched his lookalike leave with a frown. 

Crowley stepped up by his side, glancing over the heaps of research material on the table with disinterest.

Dean did almost exactly the same, standing on the other side of the blue-clad Sam. He frowned in the direction the one in red had gone.

"Is he getting Cas?"

The remaining Sam nodded, looking up at Dean.

“Can I talk to you for a minute? Sans the demon?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows. Seemed all of Sam's affection for him was in the other twin.

"You know, I came all this way to help you," he pointed out drolly, crossing his arms. "And all you've done is slam the door in my face and tell me to go away."

So he might feel a little bit slighted that half of Sam could dislike him so much...

Dean rolled his eyes. 

"Cut the dramatic crap and go wait in the kitchen."

“FINE,” Sam said sharply, standing up. He looked Crowley in the eye for a moment, then turned to his brother. “You broke our phone. It was the only connection we had to our BOYFRIEND—” He glared at Crowley over his shoulder. “—so now other me is freaking out. Don’t leave him alone with Crowley. I’m pretty sure I got the logic soul square.” 

"BOYFRIEND?" Crowley leaned in a bit, smirking. "Did somebody call dibs on the Moose?" It was a little surprising to hear Sam admit to seeing anyone in front of Dean.

Dean sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Look, Sammy, you got a good thing going. He sounds like a hell of a guy, and no offense, but you're not all there right now. The last thing you wanna do is make big life decisions."

Crowley raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms. A 'Hell' of a guy, hm.

"And yeah, he's taken," Dean added, turning to the demon with a scowl. "BOTH of them are, so don't get any ideas."

Sam spun around to scowl down at Crowley just like his brother. 

“Don’t even think about it. Dean’s right. I’ve got a good thing going and I’d hate for something to mess that up.” 

The Sam in red came back, his phone in hand. He held it up for Dean to see. 

“Which one of you did this?” 

“I did,” the other Sam said before Dean could reply. 

He had just literally told Dean that he knew that it was him who broke the phone. Why take the blame for his brother? 

The Sam in blue took the phone and sat it aside on the table behind him. 

“We need to focus on getting ourselves back together. We’ll deal with him later.” 

The stupid look on Dean's face told Crowley he hadn't expected Blue Sam to lie about who broke the phone, either. He was in the dark about a lot of things, it seemed.

Just what had Sam said about him for Dean to consider the boyfriend so great, anyway? It was hard to pretend not to care and roll his eyes, but Crowley did so. For his image's sake.

"And on THAT note, was anybody actually going to get the angel, or are we doing this without him?" He asked drolly, glancing down at the broken phone.

Wow. Dean had done a thorough job of destroying it – the screen was shattered into a web of shards, and it appeared to have been dunked in water as well.

Glancing at the two Sams a bit guiltily, Dean headed for the door to the hallway.

"I'll get him. Stay put, all three of you."

Immediately, the Sam in blue crossed his arms over his barrel chest and stared Crowley down. The other Sam looked after Dean worriedly then whispered to his twin. 

“Why don’t we just tell him?” 

“He still has that mark on his arm. Do you really want to piss him off?” Sam said drolly. He moved closer to Crowley, eyes scanning the demon with suspicion. It was really weird how different the two of them were acting. If Crowley didn’t know any better, he’d think at least one of the handsome Moose twins was out to get him. 

And not in the sexy way. 

He stood there, arms still crossed, and looked them over for the first time when they were both there and holding still. They really were just perfectly identical. Sigh.

"What did he mean, Moose?" He asked the room in general (since everybody there was Sam besides him, anyway.) "When he talked about making big life decisions? Which half of you wants to stop seeing me..." He tilted his head, glancing from one Sam's face to the other. "...And which half told Dean he has a 'Hell' of a boyfriend?"

Both Sams’ expressions softened as they looked at each other. The one in red sighed. 

“I told Dean about us dating, but I couldn’t tell him who.” 

“And I think we should break up. Dean’s entire life revolves around keeping tabs on us. He’s not stupid — he’s going to find out sooner or later. I might love you, but Dean is still gonna win that. He’s my brother,” the Sam in the blue pajamas said with a sigh. 

The other one’s eyes grew wide for a second as his duplicate’s words sunk in. Then he dropped his gaze to the floor, cheeks and ears tinting pink. 

The word 'love' didn't escape Crowley's notice – he just wasn't sure he believed it. It was coming from Blue Sam, after all, the one who didn't even seem to have missed him. Also the one who just lied to his other half's face a minute ago about the phone, and to Dean by acting like the boyfriend and the demon were two entirely different people.

On the other hand, Red Sam looked downright flustered, and they WERE two halves of the same person.

"I actually agree with Squirrel on this one," Crowley said finally, reaching to pat Red Sam's shoulder. He glanced at Blue Sam like he might slap the hand away before patting his shoulder as well. "You can't make that decision well split in half. Let's put you back together, and if you still don't want to keep seeing me then consider us finished."

The Sam in red broke into a smile, quickly leaning over to peck the King of Hell’s cheek. Blue Sam looked less excited. He frowned thoughtfully at the kiss, eying Crowley. After a moment of consideration — and a glance towards the hall — he relented and leaned to kiss his cheek, as well. 

Both of them in such close proximity was so pleasant – two great tall handsome men, both close enough to reach out and touch, both placing kisses on his cheeks. Crowley didn't just think about sighing this time, he actually did sigh. Wistfully.

"I've missed you, too," he murmured, turning toward the hall door as he caught the sound of footsteps. Sure enough, Dean returned, Castiel trailing behind him looking about as happy to see Crowley as usual.

"Cas, good to see you," he told the angel with an insincere smile.

"Crowley," was the annoyed one-word reply. That was all the greeting he was going to get, probably.

“He thinks he can help put me back together,” Red Sam explained, taking a few safe steps back from Crowley. He looked a little misty eyed at the comment from the demon. Weirdly enough, the one in blue looked a little sad, too.

Dean definitely noticed their expressions, and shot Crowley a look. It wasn't unreasonable to assume the demon would be the cause, but not for the reasons Dean was probably thinking.

Crowley ignored him, focusing on Castiel as the angel stepped over near the Sams.

"We've already tried several spells," Cas said shortly, holding up a battered old spellbook. "Sam is the best at casting magic, though, and he isn't able to cast it on himself."

“Maybe I should try? What if…I cast it on the other me?” The Sam in red pajamas said, gesturing to his other self. “If it’s a spell to fix my soul, it should work no matter who is casting it. Right? We just need a spell,” he added with a shrug. 

“Do you know how to make spells?” The other Sam asked Crowley. “Maybe we can just create one. We’d probably need a witch or something but then…” 

“Side effects,” both Sams said in unison, shaking their heads. 

"Yes, well, my mother dearest was a witch," Crowley replied mildly. "And I'm hundreds of bloody years old, so yes, I've picked up a thing or two."

Cue a withering look from Castiel, who had been around for millennia and had clearly not been able to fix the problem. Who ever heard of an angel becoming a witch, though?

Dean took the book from Cas and shoved it at Crowley, frowning.

"They'll show you the spell they used. We all talk it through BEFORE you try anything, got it?"

Taking the book from him, the demon smirked.

"Oh, I've got it."

“I patched it together with some files I have on my computer too.” Red Sam came over to his side, tucking his hands into his pockets. He looked at the Sam in blue. “Can you get my laptop?” 

The other Sam turned and raked books around on the table, unearthing the little black computer. He offered it to his twin. Red Sam took it and booted it up. 

“Oookay.” He squinted as he brushed a finger on the touch pad. “This is the database I used to fill in the missing words.” He showed it to Crowley. 

“Hey, I’m gonna make more coffee,” Blue Sam said, already padding his way toward the kitchen. He glanced at Dean, then ducked out of the room. 

Crowley sat at the table with the Sam in red, leaning close to his side to look over the spell carefully. Ah, that cologne... Well. Some of these words were definitely NOT supposed to be in a spell like this.

He laid the book out flat on the table beside the computer, comparing the half-there text for the spell on the page as well. Castiel sat across from them and kept an intent eye on him. This was going to take some time.


	8. Sneaky

Dean ducked into the kitchen after mumbling some excuse about helping to make the coffee. The Sam in the blue pajama pants was already in there, and he could've made coffee in his sleep.

"Hey..." Dean glanced back at the kitchen door, keeping his voice low, and stepped over near his brother at the counter.

Sam flinched, tapping the glass carafe dangerously on the counter top. It didn’t break. Thank God. 

“Yeah?” He asked hesitantly, frowning back at the door.

Dean looked at the coffee pot, brows lowered unhappily.

"We both know I'm the one who broke the phone. Why'd you lie to the other you?"

Sam continued making coffee, scooping grounds into the filter. Only after putting everything in place and flipping the on switch did he turn to his brother. He crossed his arms. 

“I can’t really explain it right now.” He sighed and rubbed his head. “He knows that I want to break up with our boyfriend, I figured he could use that as a reason why.” 

"Yeah, except you just wanted the phone so you could text him before," Dean pointed out, leaning back against the counter. He hugged his arms around himself, glancing over at Sam sideways.

"Listen...you've gotta give the guy a chance. I know the other you's got the love square of the whole soul quilt, but the way he talks about you and the mystery guy..." He smiled. "He sounds like a keeper."

He still couldn't figure out how Crowley had gotten wind of this double Sam business, but he was kind of glad the demon had showed up. If he could fix Sam, Sam could talk to Mystery Boyfriend and all would be right in the world again.

“He’s not. There’s problems. It’s…I can’t explain it right now! It just doesn’t work!” Sam shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. 

To Dean’s surprise, a tear ran down his brother’s cheek. Sam’s eyes opened slowly and he brushed at his face with a hand, frowning. He looked down at his hand in confusion and then to his brother. 

If he wasn't missing half of his soul, that kind of reaction would be really worrying. Dean blinked and sat up, reaching to place a hand on his little brother's shoulder.

"Hey...it's your life, it's up to you. I'm not gonna judge if you can't make it work," he promised. "But if this's about me and thinking I'm not gonna like him, don't worry about that. If he makes you happy, I guarantee I'll like him."

Growling, Sam dried his face again. 

“I can’t leave saving the world to you. Especially not with that.” He nodded to Dean’s arm. “This guy…” His expression softened as he drifted off into thought. Now he just looked sad.

Dean brought his other hand up to cover the spot where the mark was, feeling it twinge under his sleeve.

That reply felt like a punch in the gut. Sam was giving up his happiness for this – for him. Because he'd made one too many stupid mistakes. How damn unfair was that?

"He knows about the kind of life you lead," he replied, frowning sadly down at the kitchen tiles. "I'm not saying run off and get married and settle down, just...don't throw it away. Maybe he'd understand."

“I don’t know. Maybe he understands, maybe he doesn’t.” Sam rubbed his forehead, groaning in annoyance. “He’s not exactly an open book when it comes to his emotions. We’re not there yet. I don’t want to get there either — we should break up before the ‘I love yous’ and all that. I can’t have a serious relationship as long as I’m a hunter!” He turned and glared at the coffee pot, hugging his arms around himself. 

"If he's in the life, yes you can," Dean replied stubbornly, crossing his arms. "Listen to me, Sammy. We're gonna figure out a way to get this mark off of me."

He looked at the coffee pot, brows furrowing sadly. He didn't know what else to say. At the moment, things were pretty uncertain, and they'd actually had very little luck finding any hint HOW to remove Cain's mark.

He wasn't sure it was possible. He couldn't let Sam see that, though. This mystery guy seemed to actually make his brother happy, and they apparently hadn't even been together that long. If things had to end badly for Dean, the least he could do was make sure they ended well for Sam...  


* * *

  
"Well, well. You really do have everything in here," Crowley remarked, plucking a bottle of powdered yucca root from the shelf.

He and the Sam in red (and Castiel, who seemed unwilling to let them out of his sight) were in the bunker's storage room gathering up the ingredients for the modified reversal spell. It wasn't the most elegant rewrite, but the demon was confident that it would do what they wanted.

"We just need a little sorrel and a pinch of sagebrush and we're ready to begin! And blood, of course," he added mildly.

“Whose blood?” Sam asked, hands tucked into his nice red pajamas. He yawned widely, hunching his shoulders with the motion. He looked a little sleepy after all the research. One might think that finding a cure would be exciting, but this Sam didn’t seem too eager to absorb his other half. While the other Sam had made coffee (Crowley could easily smell it), the tall brunette’s twin hadn’t bothered to share any. “Uh, mine?” 

Crowley glanced at Castiel, who frowned back, and shrugged before turning to Sam.

"You're the subject of the spell, so it can't be yours. I'd use my own, but demon blood doesn't have the properties we're looking for, here. Dean would do nicely," he concluded, smirking. "I'm sure if there's anybody he would bleed for, it would be you."

He wondered what the other Sam was up to. Besides making coffee, obviously.

“Yeah…let ME ask him that.” Sam cringed and started back upstairs, waving back to them. “Do we need to draw a circle or anything? We already made one down here, so we should use the main room.”

"Yes, yes," Crowley said offhandedly, following him. "This is not a cute little glowy spell, Moose. We'll need the circle, the candles, all of it."

Something had occurred to him while studying the spell Sam had used. His Winchester liaison must have quite a bit of innate ability to be able to cast such a powerful spell. Once they put him back together again, Sam had real potential to be a witch if he dabbled much more.

They arrived in the big main room to find Dean and the Sam in blue sitting at the table they'd left, each armed with a cup of coffee.

Blue Sam glanced his way, eyes scanning over Crowley from head to toe. He looked away to his twin and waved a hand. 

“Where’s Cas? You two aren’t supposed to be alone.” 

Red Sam joined him at the table, resting his hands on his lookalike’s shoulders and sighing. 

“We weren’t alone. The three of us were grabbing spell ingredients.” 

“Right.” Blue Sam sat back in his seat, keeping one hand on his coffee mug, and placing his other hand on top of his twin’s. He silently stared Crowley down. 

Red Sam just yawned again. 

“Man, that coffee smells good.” 

Castiel finally caught up to them, stepping over to stand near Dean.

"Crowley seems confident this spell will work."

"I AM confident it'll work," the demon corrected him, smiling. "It's going to take quite a bit of set up, so you should grab some of that coffee, Moose." He was addressing the Sam in red.

Dean looked bothered by something, but didn't comment.

The Sam in red didn’t hesitate to head off to the kitchen, covering yet another yawn. Blue Sam watched him until he was gone, then leaned forward in his chair to growl at Crowley. 

“Keep your hands off of me.”

Casting a covert glance at Dean — oh, good, occupied by the angel and his concerned look — Crowley smirked at Sam and stepped a little further away from the table.

"You really think Feathers there would tolerate any of that?" He asked softly.

Sam got up and stepped close enough to look down on Crowley, still frowning. A waft of that tantalizing aftershave tickled Crowley’s senses. Sam’s hair looked so touchable and that T-shirt was clinging in all the right places, and — 

No. Wait. They had a spell to cast first. 

“I think you’re sneaky,” Sam whispered softly, also checking that his brother was occupied. 

Ooh, whispering. Sigh. Smiling only seemed to irk him further, but Crowley couldn't help it.

"Thinking back on all of those little text messages and such, Moose, I think we're even sneakier together," he whispered back, tapping the middle of the taller man's chest with his index finger.

Dean was talking quietly to Castiel, who looked sad about whatever it was. Maybe their sad lack of a love life.

Sam shrugged, putting his hand over Crowley’s. He lifted it up and pressed a kiss to the King’s fingertips. 

“I said no touching.” Letting go of him, Sam turned and waved to his brother. “I’ll go get the candles.” With a rather sly glance over his shoulder, he headed off down the hall. 

As soon as he left, the other Sam returned triumphantly with a cup of steaming coffee in his hands. He smiled at Crowley and joined him by the table. 

“Are we ready?” 

The King of Hell was watching his blue-clad twin disappear around the corner in the hallway. Apparently both Sams still had some affection for him, in their own ways.

Turning to the fond smile of the Sam in red, he nodded.

"Just as soon as the other you gets the candles. You want to talk to Dean about this, or shall I?"

"About what?" The Sams arriving and leaving had apparently caught Dean's attention, because he was looking at them dubiously.

“The ritual.” Sam sipped his coffee and looked at his brother. “I thought we were ready to cast it—” 

The Sam in blue returned just then, with a muscular armload of tall white candles. He didn’t even break his stride as he snagged his other self and led him along toward the living room. 

Crowley watched them breeze past, bemused but unable to deny that they looked delightful walking away. He really had to force himself to look away and focus on Dean and Castiel. The angel was picking out a number of candles, referring to the paper copy of the new spell Crowley had written out.

"Yes, the spell," the demon said, standing up straight and adjusting his tie. Why did Sam have to be so bloody attractive? He didn't even have to try.

"The spell requires blood," Cas supplied for him, shooting him a look. "Dean, demon blood will affect the spellwork and we can't use Sam's, so it has to be yours."

Dean got to his feet, stepping after the Sams.

"No problem," he called over his shoulder, leaving the angel and demon standing there.

Castiel immediately turned a suspicious look on Crowley.

"What? We have a circle to draw," the demon said mildly, heading after the others.


	9. Hand in Hand

Both of the Sams had shoved the furniture to the sides of the room and were busy drawing and setting out candles side by side. They were back to the suspicious whispering and Dean didn’t like it one bit.

It should have been reassuring to see the Sams acting in unison. That was good for them to combine back together, right? Instead, though, it felt like they were conspiring and hiding something major from him.

Whatever. Crowley knew more about witchcraft than Cas, and this spell was supposed to fix everything. Once Sam was back to his normal self, Dean could apologize for busting his phone, kick Crowley out of the bunker, and convince his brother to give the mystery boyfriend a chance.

The spell couldn't take that long. This weird day was almost over.

"So do you need the blood now, or while we're casting this thing?" Dean asked the Sams, rolling up his sleeve. He made sure it was the arm that didn't have the Mark.

“During,” the Sammy in red said, sitting to look at Dean. “You get to draw over the big symbol in the middle, so we kind of need to cut your fingertip.” 

The other Sam sat up too, looking over their handiwork with a nod of approval. 

Dean glanced down at his hand, then scanned over the marks they'd drawn out on the floor.

"Whatever you need," he said. "That means I have to be in the circle, right?"

Crowley stepped quietly into the room, circling around Dean to the left. Castiel arrived and went right, probably just to be opposite the demon in the circle.

"Ready, boys?" Crowley asked the brothers.

“Yeah,” the Sams mumbled, almost in unison. They both got to their feet and moved to sit on either side of the large demonic looking symbol that took up the center of the spell circle. 

“Do we have to hold hands again?” Red Sam asked, glancing at Crowley. The Sam in blue reached and took his hands anyway. 

“We might have to kiss.” 

“Ha ha,” Red Sam sighed, rolling his eyes at his other self. 

Dean raised an eyebrow, stepping over to sit in the circle with them. Blue Sam hadn’t sounded like he was joking.

Crowley pulled out the paper with the spell on it, comparing it to the marks on the floor. Sam was great at this kind of thing, and the approving look said that the demon agreed.

"Feathers, light the candles," he told Cas, stepping around to the front of the circle. "Moose and Moose, you'll need to take your clothes off for this part."

"Seriously?" Dean frowned.

Without a moment of hesitation, the Sam in blue tugged his T-shirt off over his head. The Sam in red looked alarmed and held up a hand toward him. 

“WHOA! Wait! Are you serious?” He frowned at Crowley. “Why do we have to take our clothes off?” 

Dean was glad that Cas at least looked just as suspicious as he felt. Crowley had always not so subtly hit on Sam, so it would just figure if he took advantage of the situation and got a show out of it...

"The idea is to merge together," Crowley told Red Sam drolly. "Clothes won't do that, and they'll probably interfere with YOU doing that. Best be safe."

Dean hated that that sort of made sense. He turned to the Sam in red, sighing.

"You did say the extra you appeared naked, and we're trying to reverse what happened," he admitted.

“Then only one of us needs to be naked!” The Sam in red gestured to his other self. 

“Why is it always me?” The other Sam said, despite having taken his shirt off. “We are exactly the same. If they see me naked, they see you naked.” 

“I don’t care. You’re halfway there already. Let’s just get on with this.” After a moment of them staring at each other again, Red Sam waved a hand. “Take off your pants.” 

With a sigh, Blue Sam got up and stripped down. He chucked his wad of clothes at the other him, who growled and tossed them aside. The now naked Sam sat back down and scowled darkly. 

“This floor is cold.” 

“Shut up and take my hands.” 

Crowley looked amused, the bastard. Dean frowned at him again. He sure would be glad when this was over.

"We're trying to reverse the effects of what you did, Sam, but I’ve had to modify this thing quite a bit," the demon said, holding up the piece of paper with the spell written on it. "I'm going to be bloody irritated if you end up merged with pajamas sandwiched in the middle. Just be a dear and both of you take it all off, for your own safety."

Dean sighed, turning to the Sams.

"He's...got a point," he said reluctantly.

Dean heard the naked Sam chuckle as Red Sam relented and got undressed too. Soon they were both sitting butt naked on the floor. Previously-Red Sam shook his head. 

“Don’t say anything or I’ll punch you.” 

The other Sam smirked and took his hands yet again. 

"Okay, let's go on with this," Dean grumbled, turning back to Crowley. Cas, he noticed, had finished lighting all of the candles and was now gathering up the clothes the Sams had tossed out of the circle. He stepped over next to Crowley, peeking over his shoulder at the spell.

Crowley shook his head.

"You'd regret it if we rushed and mussed it all up," he pointed out. "Make sure you've got a knife handy. When the candles change, you need to draw over that mark in the middle with blood and then put a dab on each Sam. Doesn't matter where. Ready?"

Cas frowned at him and turned to Dean. 

"Dean. After you put blood on the Sams, you'll need to get out of the circle as quickly as you can."

"Details," Crowley said dismissively.

"Details I'd like to know first!" Dean shook his head. What would've happened if he stayed inside the circle?

“I won’t miss you,” Sam told his other self, shaking his head. The other one (who was previously wearing blue pajamas) shrugged a shoulder, but his expression told Dean that the words had hurt a little. They both closed their eyes and took deep breaths. 

Dean picked up the little knife they'd brought with the other supplies, taking a breath as well. This was it. Crowley had better not screw this up.  


* * *

  
Crowley was acting far more confident than he really was about this spell. Despite what he'd told the others, his mother hadn't actually taught him any of her magic practices. He was FAIRLY sure that the spell was modified in a way that, if it didn't fix Sam's predicament, at least would not harm him when it failed.

If. If it failed.

Dean sat there with the knife poised to cut his hand, the naked and gloriously well-muscled Sam twins holding hands right in front of him. It was not just for show that Crowley closed his eyes while raising his hands and chanting the Latin spell verses – those muscles were distracting.

" _Ubi duo, ibi et unum sint! Cum autem illa et sanguine._ " The flames of the candles flickered low, and he opened his eyes. The fire was a bloody red.

Dean glanced quickly at Castiel, who nodded. It was time for the blood part of the spell. Crowley suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. He'd SAID when the candles changed it was time, so why did Dean need the angel to confirm it?

The older Winchester ran the knife over his palm and began to quickly trace over the symbol by the Sams with the blood. The candles and blood both glowed a little without the flames' help.

Crowley smirked. This was going to work. He tossed the bundles of prepared herbs into the bowl in front of him. Castiel ran a hand over the bowl and lit it on fire – something he had been about to do. Well, as long as it was burning up it should still work... He still shot the angel an irritated look.

" _Erit autem sanguis sigillum,_ " he chanted as Dean rubbed his hands together and placed a bloody hand print on each of his brothers' shoulders. " _Et completum!_ "

There was a loud whoosh of air, and Dean leapt out of the circle with a look of alarm. Well, he'd been warned to be fast.

The candles flared blindingly bright, and then abruptly, nothing. The room was dark and still, and smelled heavily of herb smoke and melted candle wax.

“Dean?” Sam asked heavily, coughing.

"Sammy?" Dean's voice came back. Castiel hit the light switch, and everybody looked into the circle.

There sat Sam. Just one Sam. In all his naked glory. The spell worked! He was clutching his forehead and looked pale, but he was one person again. 

“Whoa. Ugh.” The big brunette hunched forward and squeezed his eyes shut. “Good God. My head.” He gritted his teeth and looked at his brother. “Dean, I’m…I’m…” He coughed and slapped his other hand to his head, grinding his teeth. 

Dean wasted no time hurrying back into the circle and to his brother's side. He knelt and put a hand on Sam's shoulder – adding the bloody hand mark right back where the magic had eaten it before.

Crowley felt quite proud of himself. The angel couldn't fix Sam, Dean couldn't, but the King of Hell had pulled it off. Maybe now they could have a chat about their relationship status.

Sam was starting to shake like a leaf, though. He lurched forward, bracing a hand on Dean’s shoulder. He slapped his other hand over his mouth, retching. Glowing blue-white seeped through his fingers and dripped onto floor. Where it fell, it swirled up into smoke. 

Oh. That couldn’t be a good thing. 

Castiel hurried over and knelt by Sam, too.

"Sam, look at me." He turned the brunette's face to study it with a frown. Dean rubbed Sam's back, watching this. They seemed to have forgotten Crowley existed at the moment...which was probably for the best.

What had gone wrong? They'd done everything right. Well, Dean had been a little slow getting out of the circle, but...Sam was one person again, so it had still worked.

The white light ran down Sam’s face from his eyes as he stared up at the angel. 

“What’s happening? We’re—I’m—we’re not together. I—he—I’m not—he’s not—” He gasped and pushed away from both Dean and Cas, as the hot white light poured from his face. 

The fresh bloody hand print on his shoulder flashed the same color — then the symbols within the circle rippled to life around them. Sam shoved Cas, who was closest to him, out of the circle. “Get back!” 

The entire room flared brightly and Crowley could see Sam’s soul split again. It wasn’t pretty. He split from his neck down his chest and fell apart, screaming. One of the Sam-blobs reformed, but the other one swirled into the air. 

It took on a skeletal form, floating above Sam before spiraling to Dean. It seeped into the older Winchester’s skull, causing his eyes and mouth to glow like Sam’s had. 

"Dean!" Castiel knew better than to get right back into the circle, but he looked like he wanted to. He had clearly seen the same thing Crowley was seeing – the light, the blue-white light, was Sam's soul. The flaring of it from Dean's eyes and mouth looked eerily like an angel the moment they were killed.

The light flared and died almost immediately, and the sigils on the floor turned a dull ashen gray, burnt out.


	10. Hell of a Combo

Crowley went to check on Sam, knowing the circle was harmless now. The spell hadn't gone that badly – damned Dean and his bloody hands all over his brother, THAT was what had cemented this new problem. He could already see that Sam's soul wasn't glowing as brightly as it should have...

Seeing him go into the circle, Castiel hurried over to check on Dean as well.

Sam sat up dizzily, his eyes rolling with the motion. 

“Ugh. The spell didn’t work.” He looked up at Crowley and sighed. “Did I…fall asleep?”

The demon frowned, taking advantage of Castiel's distracted state to run a hand over Sam's hair and rest it on the back of his neck. He wanted to kiss him, too, but in front of Dean and the angel that would just be stupid.

"Not quite, Moose. We're back to one of you, but your brother's..." He glanced over at Dean, who Castiel was looking at with a worried frown. "I think a bit of you got in him."

“What?” Sam said in alarm, twisting away from Crowley’s hand to look at Dean. “Dean! Are you okay?” He tried to stand up and stumbled, grabbing Crowley’s sleeve so hard that it tore it from the shoulder seam. More work for the tailor…

Crowley put both arms around him, standing and pulling him easily to his feet. 

"Easy, now. Feathers has him, and he's not in any danger," he assured, looking up at Sam. "I made sure the spell couldn't harm either of you. Rearrange bodies and souls, though, yes."

"Where's Sam?" Dean seemed to be snapping out of whatever daze he was in, looking around Castiel. He looked pretty disoriented. "Sammy?"

“Dean!” Sam practically shouted back, hauling Crowley along as support to get closer to his brother. “Dean, are you okay? Crowley said something about some of my soul getting into yours or something.” 

He sat down next to Squirrel, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

From what Crowley could see — other than Sam’s gorgeous naked muscles — the younger Winchester was still missing about half of his soul. Which from the looks of it, Dean was now in possession of. 

Bloody hell. Well, at least Sam's whole soul was still THERE, just...still split in half. Sam seemed concerned for Dean, so if Crowley had to guess, he'd bet the half from Previously-Red Sam was the half this Sam still held onto. If it even worked like that. They HAD merged for a short time there...

Dean, who currently glowed with the light of about a soul and a half, offered Sam an uncertain smile. Castiel was holding his injured hand, and the grace seeping into the cuts was easy for Crowley to see. Angels were so flashy and bright.

"I'm okay. Uh, I think," Dean told Sam. Castiel helped him to his feet by the same hand he'd just healed, shooting Crowley a dark look.

"Feathers and I can see what's really happened," Crowley informed the brothers, keeping a hold on Sam in case he fell over. "Moose, your soul DID go back together, but then it split back apart and one half decided Dean was a better place to call home."

“WHY?” Sam groaned loudly. He massaged his temples with his hand and shook his head. “This week sucks.” Then he glared over at Crowley. “I don’t suppose you have a spell to fix THIS?” Then he froze, hazel eyes widening. Sam slowly glanced back at his brother with concern. “How are you feeling, Dean? Is other me like a separate person or…what?” 

Realizing what he was thinking, Crowley looked at Dean curiously too. The Sams had been two distinct personalities when split up – was one in Dean's head? Would he blab about their secret affair?

The older Winchester shook his head uncertainly, green eyes lingering on Crowley for a moment too long before he turned to Sam.

"I'm okay. I just feel kind of buzzed, like I drank a few pots of coffee," he offered, running a hand through his hair. Castiel patted his shoulder, still looking concerned.

"We should let Sam get dressed and go see what solutions there are for this situation," he said, frowning at Crowley again. As if it hadn't been Dean to really muck things up with the extra blood in the mix...

“Clothes. Right.” Sam blushed as he remembered he was still naked. He shyly let go of Crowley and went to find his pants. He returned a moment later in just the red flannel pajama bottoms. The shirt was slung over his arm, along with the other him’s clothes. With a shake of his head, he started across the room. 

It was very difficult not to watch him walk away, but dammit, Cas and Dean were standing right there. 

"After you," Crowley told them, waving them toward the door. His mind was already working on which spells might fix this. Maybe they should've extracted the soul parts entirely, merged them together, then put them back into one Sam or the other and killed the spare. What a shame, though...

And now Dean had half of Sam's soul in him, so who knew how that affected how HE regarded Crowley?

Shaking his head, the demon followed Dean and his angel out into the big main room. The best thing to do was to fix this as soon as possible. He'd made the spell Winchester safe, so how bad could the side effects be, really?  


* * *

  
Dean snapped awake. What the hell? He was laying on the couch, face half smushed into one of the pillows and arms, and somebody had put a blanket over him. No, actually that was a trench coat. Well, now he knew who, anyway.

He vaguely remembered Cas telling him to rest while they did some reading, and then he was opening his eyes.

The spell really had gone awry. He paused, wondering where the word 'awry' had even come from. Who did he think he was, a nerd like Sam?

Speaking of Sam... He hoped he imagined that part where Crowley said half of his brother's soul went into him, but he had a bad feeling it was real. There was a buzzing in the back of his mind like he'd drank a couple of pots of coffee, and if he had to describe his current state of mind it would be something like 'thoughtful and horny.' Hell of a combo.

Past all of the weirdness and buzzing, he realized he heard voices across the room. It sounded like Cas. He wouldn't mind laying eyes on the angel right about now...wouldn't mind laying some other things on him, either.

Where the hell had THAT come from? Dean sat up on the couch, vaguely alarmed at his own thoughts. Okay, so maybe Cas's coat over him was making him thinking about the REST of Cas over him – no. Bad.

"Squirrel looks all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed over there," Crowley commented, glancing over at him. Cas looked, too, and Dean realized Sam was not at the table with them.

"Where's Sam?" He asked, relieved he had something to focus on besides how handsome Cas looked in his black suit.

Like, damn.

As if on cue, Sammy came out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee and a handful of mugs. He looked a little sleepy and pale, but otherwise was up and moving around. He spotted Dean and smiled, dumping the coffee stuff onto the table by the other two. He crossed the room and tucked his hands into his pockets. 

“Hey. How’re you feeling?” 

Dean studied his brother's face – little bit of stubble, hair kind of messy, eyes a little tired. Yeah, he looked he'd been sleeping, too.

"I'm...it's hard to explain," Dean told him, smiling. "Not bad, but...complicated? We'll go with that." He got to his feet, hugging the trench coat. For some reason he didn't want to sit it down – probably because it smelled like Cas, and Cas, he was realizing, smelled pretty damn good.

Casually pulling the coat over his shoulders, he asked Sam, "How about you?"

“I’m okay. Just a little off, too. I’m more worried about you. I mean, what if you explode or something?” His little brother frowned, taking the idea very seriously. 

Dean laughed, patting his shoulder. 

"Nah, I'm just keeping this half of your soul safe for ya."

He felt surprisingly optimistic about this whole situation. Almost nostalgic about it. Here they were, in this together, working on solving it. Dealing with supernatural weirdness with his brother was the family business, right?

"Did they come up with anything new while I was out?" He added, starting toward Cas and Crowley. Oh, glancing at Cas had been a mistake. His hair looked like it needed fingers run through it...

Sammy fell into step beside him, shrugging a shoulder. 

“I don’t know. I’ve been in the kitchen. I figured food and caffeine were in order after that whole fiasco. The pot’s right there.” He pointed to the carafe of roasty scented coffee sitting next to Crowley. “I’ll go grab the sandwiches.” Sam split off and disappeared back into the kitchen.


	11. Burning Bridges

Sandwiches? Hell yes. Dean sat down beside Cas, who was watching his every move carefully, and helped himself to a big cup of coffee. Did he always love coffee this much, or was that Sam's soul influencing things? He wouldn't put it past his brother to feel a love for coffee in his soul.

Whatever the reason, it was delicious, and he found he kind of liked Cas watching him drink it. He gave the angel a little smile and wave, taking another sip.

"G'morning, sunshine. How goes the research?"

"Well," Crowley answered for Cas, smirking at him. "Fantastic, actually. Tell him, Feathers."

"We have a plan for what to do next," Cas explained, looking at Dean with concern. His eyes were so damn blue. His grace was blue, too – maybe his eyes were bluer because of that. Like in Dune.

Sammy came back with a plate STACKED with sandwiches. They had several types of meat and some veggies — but Dean didn’t even mind the green stuff. They looked amazing.

“Yeah? What’s the plan?” His little brother joined them at the table, setting the plate right in front of Dean’s face. He had the best little brother in the world, he decided. 

"This...is beautiful," Dean declared, holding his hands out to frame the plate. That didn't last long, though – he busied himself with trying to pick out one of every kind of sandwich available, shooting Sam a very fond look.

"Even without Dean mucking things up by activating the sigils a second time," Crowley began mildly, "my spell wouldn't have fixed you. It focused too much on the bodies, and not on the soul bits."

"His soul's still in two bodies, though," Dean pointed out around a mouthful of ham on rye. "One of 'em's just mine now." He glanced between Cas and Crowley, waiting for some explanation to help with that.

Cas turned to talk to Dean directly.

"That's why we need a spell to extract the pieces first, and then we'll combine them before putting the soul back into Sam," he said grimly.

"Right," Crowley said, taking a sandwich from the plate. Roast beef and swiss on sourdough. "Not pulling your soul out with Sam's is going to be the trick."

“So, I’ll be soulless again?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow at Crowley. He glanced at Dean and smiled, taking a sip from his coffee. He seemed way less angry than before. Now that it was back to two Winchesters, his little brother was acting fairly normal. Sam shrugged. “I guess it would only be for a few minutes. Just make sure I don’t run off again. Ugh.” 

"I'll look after you," Crowley told him, smiling. That smile was a little too fond. Dean found himself feeling suspicious of it, but he couldn't really complain at Crowley for helping them. There were always ulterior motives with the King of Hell, though.

"And I'll be keeping an eye on you, Dean, until you and Sam are back to normal," Cas added. Suddenly any worries about Crowley were replaced with a strangely enthusiastic plot to get Cas to take off more of his clothes.

This was kind of like being drunk. He knew he shouldn't want to untie Cas's tie or unbutton his shirt or run his fingers through that messy dark hair, but he DID. Really, really bad. He’d wanted to for a long time, but hadn’t let himself even think about it much. Now he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

It would've been practical to suggest that Crowley keep an eye on him and Cas watch Sam, but that meant denying himself the angel's very pleasant company, and...he didn't wanna.

"I'm sure he'll take good care of you," Crowley commented, looking amused. Even he could see how well they fit together, right? Dean considered the demon for a moment thoughtfully.

While he'd been a demon himself for a few months, they'd had a pretty whirlwind relationship. It was kind of a blur of booze and sex, but he was fairly sure some of that sex involved Crowley.

That fact had always weirded him out after he'd gotten back to human again, but he found that he didn't care right now. Crowley was even sort of attractive, in a bearded "call me Daddy" sort of way...

A bit alarmed at where his thoughts were going, Dean turned his focus on Cas instead. Blue-eyed, dark-haired, angelic and staring like Dean had egg on his face. Aww.

Realizing that he'd just been sitting there admiring the demon and angel, he cleared his throat and tried to focus on his second sandwich. Turkey and provolone on whole wheat. That was gorgeous, too, but he didn't want it all over his body.

Well, maybe.

"Uh, sounds good. Go team," he mumbled, drinking the coffee instead. This was going to be an interesting day.  


* * *

  
The bunker had fallen silent. The angel was pouring over books in the library, looking for ways to safely extract human souls without killing their bodies, and Dean was occupied with following him around like a lovesick puppy.

Now was the perfect time to get Sam alone for a few minutes.

The bunker was heavily warded from the outside, but once inside Crowley could teleport wherever he pleased. He appeared just outside of Sam's bedroom, hoping he wasn't actually asleep yet.

The handsome brunette had said something about coffee failing him and retreated to his room about fifteen minutes ago. Crowley had had to ensure that Castiel was preoccupied before coming after him.

Glancing up and down the empty hallway, the King of Hell knocked lightly on the bedroom door.

"Moose. Open up, will you?"

He heard footsteps come up to the door, but it didn’t open right away. There was a pause, then the door cracked open enough for a hazel eye to peer down at him. 

“We…probably shouldn’t be alone.” 

The demon raised his eyebrows.

"Why? You're not afraid of me, are you?"

Sam pulled the door open further, leaning on the frame and looking at Crowley with the shiniest hazel eyes the King had ever seen. He looked so sad. So heartbroken. He even sniffled a little before he spoke, hugging his arms around himself. 

“The other me was right. What was I thinking? Now he’s gone. What if we can’t get him back out of Dean? I…” He took a shaky breath, eyes growing misty. “I lost him.” 

Crowley considered for a moment. Sam really wasn't his usual self right now. Still, it was him...and the spell that had further complicated his situation was cast by Crowley. It felt too much like hurting Sam.

There was a time that wouldn't have mattered to the demon, but he had to admit that it did now. Stepping closer, he cupped Sam's face in both hands. 

"Darling...I'm going to fix this. You'll have the rest of you back, I promise."

Sam started to cry, practically scooping Crowley up into his arms. 

“You promise?” the brunette asked in a whisper, resting his forehead against the shorter man’s to stare into his eyes. “You’re Crowley. When you promise, you mean it — right?” 

Slipping both arms up to hug around his neck, the demon murmured, "Have I ever lied to you before?"

Inwardly, he was a bit alarmed at how much the tears affected him. Sam was probably just going to break up with him the moment he had all of his soul back, but...this side of him was so sweet and affectionate. It was very tempting to steal a kiss, or more. The bed was right there...

Sam beat him to it, sweeping him up into a breath-stealing kiss in those muscular arms. He broke away just in time to make the demon dizzy. 

“It’s a deal now. Sealed with a kiss. I know you’re a businessman and I only have half a soul, but…” Moose trailed off, his expression growing sad again. 

Crowley blinked, trying to formulate a good sentence after that kiss. Sam was distracting enough just being in front of him -- being pressed up against him, smelling his cologne and still tasting his lips? Even Crowley could be speechless, he was finding out.

When he finally snapped out of it, all he could think to do was to put both hands on Sam's shoulders and draw him down for another kiss.

"You still need your soul, Moose. Let's just make it an IOU," he sighed.

Sam pulled him inside the room, pushing the door closed and pinning Crowley between it and him. He ran a hand down the demon’s cheek and sighed fondly. 

“When I get it back, it’s all yours.” He kissed Crowley again, a hand magically finding its way to pop the button on the front of his blazer loose. 

Crowley quickly caught that hand and squeezed it, bringing it up to press a kiss to Sam's knuckles -- and to put his arm between them.

"Moose...S-Sam," he said, sucking in a deep breath. "We shouldn't."

Sam would remember him taking advantage once he was himself again, he reminded himself. Castiel would smite him in a heartbeat, too. Neither of those things mattered compared to the text message that he’d just read, though. He had swung by Hell to pick up a new phone (since he’d shattered the old one into a thousand pieces in the throne room) and the lone message from Sam had been waiting for him.

A break up message.

Right now Sam’s eyebrows pinched, and he nodded, backing off in defeat. 

“I know. Other me would be pissed.” He turned and walked to his bed, perching on it and hugging himself again. The bed looked like a mess. Clearly Moose hadn’t been doing very much sleeping. 

Sitting with him on the bed just seemed like tempting fate. Still, he looked so sad, and a little hurt, and for some reason that really bothered Crowley.

Perching on the edge of the bed, he looked up at Sam sidelong and sighed, smiling.

"It's been fun, hasn't it? Now that Dean has a bit of you inside, do you think he'll figure it out...?"

It occurred to him that if Sam planned to end things, he could just claim that Crowley had made up anything to do with their fling. That was a smart way to cover for him, maybe he'd just lie about it himself...

Sam shifted to face him, sliding a hand over to take Crowley’s. 

“I don’t know, but I’ll tell him. If it means that I get to keep you in my life, I don’t care if we fight about it.” 

Crowley looked at their hands, smiling fondly and trying to enjoy things as they were. This bit of him said sweet things, but that text had a time stamp back a day or two. He was pretty sure real Sam, complete Sam, had decided against him.

"Your brother is a moron, but I can't well see either of you without the other," he told the handsome brunette mildly. "Burning bridges over a sordid affair with a demon is sweet of you, but don't."

He was pretty sure this was one of their last romantic moments together. Castiel was driven to fix this, especially now that Dean was directly mixed up in it, and would find a spell to use quickly. Saying something about the text would just make this half of Sam sad – better to carry on and say nothing.

“It’s not an affair to me,” Sam said softly, tears building up in those eyes again. He squeezed Crowley’s hand and sniffled. “I knew you didn’t love me. I was willing to pretend, you know?” Sam let go of his hand slowly and took a shaky breath. “So I could see you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve never felt like this.” Sam stared hard at the ground, shaking his head. “It feels like the first time that I’ve…actually been in love.” 

Crowley wondered what to say to that. He'd thought that it was just an affair to him, too, but hearing Sam saying "love" was like a slap in the face. He shouldn't have been affected, but he was. This wasn't the Sam who had sent that text, but he would be soon, and he'd remember everything they said here.

Abruptly, Crowley got to his feet, frowning. 

"Of course you're in love. This half, this soul bit, is the soft one. Put you back together and you'll see me for what I am again, and it's not somebody you could love, Moose."

He turned on his heel and started for the door. As final as he wanted to be about this conversation, some nagging attachment made him walk instead of teleporting away.

Sam grabbed his arm, stepping around him to block the door. 

“Are you dumping me?” he asked hesitantly, unable to look Crowley in the eye. 

"What? No, no..." Crowley sighed, looking up at him unhappily. What was he supposed to say? All he'd wanted to do was to have one more nice moment with Sam before it was all over, and instead he just seemed to be causing more pain.

"We need to get you back to normal before we talk about this," he said finally, looking at the hand still gripping his arm tightly. As if that would keep him from vanishing if he felt like it. "If you say 'love' it needs to be from all of you."

“It doesn’t really matter, if you don’t love me.” Sam let him go, turning and ducking out the door himself. Well. That went well. 

Crowley watched him leave, angry at the ache it left in his chest.

"Never said I didn't," he told the empty hallway.


	12. Gears Turning

Cas had been around for years. Why in the world hadn't Dean made a move until now? 

The angel had been intent on paying attention to the boring old book he held when Crowley slipped away. Normally Dean would have been concerned that the demon was alone with his brother, but now for some reason he thought of Crowley a lot more fondly, too. Sam would be fine...

"Dean," Cas sighed, pretending to be exasperated that the hunter had scooted his way from the chair next door onto the angel's lap. "We, uh, need to focus on fixing this. Sam's soul was never meant to be in halves."

He SAID that, but he put an arm around Dean's waist, and his face was starting to turn pink. Yeah, the exasperation was definitely fake. Dean smirked and kissed his cheek.

"Aw, am I distracting you?"

The sound of a glass mug shattering across the floor broke Dean’s focus away from the angel. Sam was standing just inside of the room, looking at the two of them with a mix of alarm and embarrassment. 

“Uh…” He stood in place, turning away and then back again. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt, uh, things.” 

"Oh, hey, Sammy." Dean made absolutely no move to get off of Castiel's lap. Cas was too strong for that ploy, though — he scooped Dean up in a princess carry easily and got to his feet. When he turned to place Dean on his feet on the floor, though, the hunter stubbornly hugged both arms around his neck.

"It's just Sam, he's walked in on me doing WAY worse," he told the angel fondly. Cas looked torn between flustered and apologetic, glancing between him and Sam a few times quickly. Aww.

"Sam," he managed finally, turning to the brunette with Dean still hugging around his neck. He cleared his throat, standing up a little straighter. "I thought you were taking a nap."

“I couldn’t sleep, so I was going to try coffee again,” Sammy gestured pointedly to the mess of coffee and glass at his feet. Then he was looking back at them, Dean in particular, with a frown. “And, really? You choose NOW, when you have half of my soul, to put the moves on Cas? Any other time would have been better! Tomorrow! A year ago! Whatever!” 

Dean shrugged. 

"No time like the present, right?" Cas was just extra handsome today, and definitely liked all of the flirting, and...

"He's not himself right now," Cas added sheepishly. "It's almost like he's drunk."

Dean turned to him and frowned, letting go of him finally.

"Hey, I'm standing right here!"

Okay, that kind of hurt. Cas looked a little apologetic, though, and his eyes were so BLUE. It was really hard stay mad at him for more than two seconds.

“He’s not drunk,” Sam said, his cheeks flushing pink as he rubbed his forehead. “That half of my soul happens to include the lusty part. That mixed with how Dean already normally is is making him act like a horny teenager.” The brunette groaned and knelt, scraping the broken mug up with very little care. “We need to fix this. NOW.” 

Cas sighed. Dean, meanwhile, had a second away from the angel to notice how flustered Sam was also acting. Sam said he was going to bed, Crowley left the room, Sammy came back red-faced...

But DEAN had the lusty soul square, which meant his brother didn't at the moment. Besides, Crowley might have a really obvious thing for Sam, but Sam had always been annoyed with that more than anything...

Right?

He only realized he'd been standing there with the gears turning in his head when the (handsome, well-dressed) subject of his thoughts walked through the door.

"Found a cure yet, Feathers?" Crowley seemed put-out.

“No, they were too busy making out!” Sam snapped, shrinking away from Crowley with a handful of glass. His gaze lingered on the King of Hell longer than it should have before he dumped the glass onto the table. Sam turned back to Crowley, keeping his eyes on the floor. 

“You guys said you wanted to take the soul parts out and fix them before we put them back into me, right? So the first step would be to remove my soul. I feel like that’s something that you don’t really need research for.” 

"Without even part of a soul, you'll act differently," Cas pointed out, stepping closer as well. Dean tried very hard not to be distracted by the little whoosh of the trench coat and how damn perfect his hair looked in this light. His everything, actually. Damn. Why did Sam have to walk in NOW?

Sam, he told himself. He had to focus. Something was off about Sam -- he was acting pissed at Crowley now, and that wasn't the case at all before. Not only that, but Crowley actually wasn't smirking or flirting in response. At all.

"Yeah, you should wait 'til the last second for that," Dean added. Cas would probably appreciate the support, right? He could be supportive and nice, and he wasn't acting like this because he was DRUNK, damn it.

Crowley shook his head and headed straight past Sam and the others, going to retrieve Cas's forgotten book from the table.

Sam watched Crowley go, his expression slipping for just a second. He looked so sad. Those damn puppy eyes. The look was short-lived, though. Sam followed after Crowley half-heartedly. 

“You can lock me up. I just want this fixed. I can’t stay like this.” The last was added with a slight tremble in his voice. 

Something had definitely changed. Had Sam made a deal with Crowley or something? It’d be just like the demon to take advantage of Sammy and trick him. 

The whole thing bothered Dean, though. If Crowley had made a deal, he'd be smug about it. He didn't even look happy right now -- kind of neutral, if anything. The King of Hell had no reason to buy only half a soul, and what could Sam possibly want bad enough to sell it, anyway?

He wasn't so sure, though, when Crowley turned with the book in hand and told Sam seriously, "I told you, I'll fix this, and I will."

"I...do know how to extract a soul without harming the human's body," Cas spoke up reluctantly, glancing between them. He looked sad, Dean thought. He could tell Sam was upset, too. Cas was such a great friend. So sweet. What a guy.

Sam looked at the angel, a tiny smile tugging at his lips. 

“Where do we start?”  


* * *

  
The solution was something they already had in the bunker, it turned out. It was a very large, antique-looking syringe with metal framing. Sam and Cas had apparently used it once to extract angel's grace from Sam (Gadreel's...not great memories, no wonder Dean hadn't been there to see), and Cas knew how to modify it to suck out human souls instead.

"You're a badass, Cas," Dean sighed happily, watching the angel adding Enochian writing to the side of the syringe. "Seriously. I don't say this enough. You're smart and tough, and that's a pretty damn nice combo."

Nice? That came out wrong. God, he really WAS bad at complimenting Cas, for anything. Maybe he was off his game because the situation with his brother was still nagging at him. Sam was over at the other table acting like Crowley was offending him even sitting on the other side.

"Thank you, Dean," Cas replied mildly. Yeah, the compliments didn't land. Damn it.

Sam thumbed through a book, but he wasn’t reading it. Dean could tell. He was just fidgeting.   
He and Crowley had been tasked with coming up with a way to actually put the soul back together. Nobody even knew how it got split in half in the first place, so they’d probably have to get creative. 

Which meant they had to talk, which they weren’t doing. 

Dean cast another fond glance at Castiel but the angel was intent on his Enochian inscription right now. Reluctantly, Dean tore himself away and moved over to the table where his brother and the demon were sitting.

Crowley looked unenthusiastic about his presence, but whatever. Dean pulled a chair out, turned it backward and straddled it, folding his arms across the back and staring Sam and the demon both down.

"Okay, spit it out. What's wrong with you two?"

"I'M perfectly fine," Crowley replied drolly. "You're the one who's off."

“Yeah,” Sam managed sadly, casting those stupid dewy eyes in Dean’s direction. How was he angry and shiny-eyed at the same time? “You might want to stop drooling on Cas. You’re distracting him,” he added miserably, sticking his nose back into his book to pretend-read some more. 

Dean wanted to said something to defend himself, that Cas clearly liked him too and didn't mind the flirting, but then they would've successfully changed the subject. And he wasn't going to fall for it.

"You know, Sammy, I've got half of your soul in here," he said, tapping his chest. "And that's all that's 'off' about me right now. You and YOU, though—" He pointed at Sam and Crowley each in turn. "—You ARE acting weird. Cas noticed it, too."

Turning to Sam, Dean frowned.

"Is it the mystery guy? Did you text him from another phone or something?" For some stupid reason, he couldn't get the idea out of his head that Sam was acting like he'd had a break up. That didn't explain Crowley's behavior, though.

Sam shut the book and dropped it on the table, resting a hand on its back cover. Then he sighed. 

“Yeah. We broke up. We just…I was so stupid. I’m a Winchester.” He glanced at Dean glumly and shook his head, sniffling a little. 

Dean stared, both stunned that Sam had just said that and that there was such a pang in his chest over it. He did have half of Sam's soul, and even the less romantic half had shed a few tears when talking about the boyfriend maybe breaking up with him...

He turned his chair around and sat on it the normal way, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"Sammy, your soul got split in HALF. You said he's in the life — if he can't handle stuff like this then he's a pretty crappy hunter!"

Crowley, he noticed, looked kind of uncomfortable all of a sudden.

“He didn’t care if my soul was split, Dean.” Sam put a hand over his and exhaled sharply. “He didn’t love me. He…he can’t.”

"Sounds like a demon," Crowley remarked almost bitterly from across the table. Dean glanced at him, feeling something click in his head. No...no way. He turned back to Sam, checking his reaction to the King of Hell's words.

Sam didn’t say anything. He pushed his chair away from the table, stood up and crossed the room to stand by Cas.

Dean expected Crowley to say something sarcastic or comment about how Moose had a bleeding heart. Instead, the demon plastered on the most carefully neutral expression he'd ever seen, holding the book up to cover half of his face and ignoring them all. Not a word from him.

Bemused, Dean said nothing, either.

"Okay, the soul extractor is ready," Cas said, and his voice was a welcome thing in all of this confusing weirdness. He liked Cas, he KNEW he liked Cas. More than liked him.

Giving Sam half of his soul back wouldn't change that.


	13. Moral Compass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, Threshie here. Sorry about the hiatus on this fic -- my co-author injured her arm and wasn't able to type for about a month. That's rough for a writer! Anyway, arm's out of the sling now and we can write again, so expect new chapters each Friday 'til the fic is complete. Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy this latest installment. ♥

"You should lay down for this," Castiel told Sam, the big soul syringe in hand.

That was a creative method for pulling out a soul, Crowley had to admit. He was too distracted by the situation with Sam to really care, though.

This Sam was clearly hurt over their conversation, but the real, complete Sam would NOT be. Their little sordid affair hadn't meant anything to Sam, and he had the text message in his new phone to prove it.

The handsome brunette nodded to the angel, casting a strangely final glance in Crowley’s direction. 

What was that for? 

Maybe Sam knew that the real him didn’t care for Crowley, too? 

Moose laid down on the worn medical bed that was in the center of the bunker’s lab. He took a deep breath and blinked up at the ceiling. 

“I’m ready.” 

The demon wanted to frown in return, but he didn't. He didn't particularly want to hurt Sam...even if it was just one half of him, and the real him had been pretty damn blunt about hurting Crowley.

Because this did hurt. He was angry at himself that it did, but he couldn't really deny it.

"This isn't going to be pleasant, but at least you won't be reverting to old injuries this time," Castiel murmured, stepping up beside the table and patting Sam's shoulder lightly.

Dean was strangely quiet. He did step up to the other side of the table, though, nodding at Sam.

“Don’t let the soulless me do anything stupid.” Sam looked up at his brother, smiling bitterly. He gripped the side of the bed and braced himself. 

Cas moved the syringe closer, but Dean grabbed his arm.

"Wait! Wait, do me first," he said quickly. The angel blinked at him, and Dean's face turned pink, the freckles on his nose standing out more than usual. "I won't be soulless after, so, less dangerous. Right?"

"He's got a point," Crowley told them -- a bit selfishly, he admitted, because it granted a few more moments with Sam. This Sam loved him. The real one certainly wouldn't.

“He does have a point.” Sam sat up on his elbow. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got up again, tucking his hands into his pockets. 

He peeked sideways at Crowley, eyebrows pinching together. There was that sad Moose face again. 

For some reason, Crowley didn't pretend he didn't care. He looked back, unhappily, glad that Castiel and Dean were distracted by each other as the older brother took off his jacket and flannel shirt and went to lay down on the table.

Arguing that they weren't broken up would be pointless by now. Once Sam had his soul back, he'd remember that HE broke them up, not whatever Crowley had said a little while ago.

For lack of anything better to do, the demon crossed his arms and watched Sam to see what he would do.

Giving Dean a pat on the arm, Sam stepped over to stand across the room next to the King of Hell. He didn’t say anything at first, watching Dean get settled in. Slowly, Sam looked down at Crowley, whispering softly. 

“I’m sorry about earlier. Really sorry.” He looked back at the other two, swallowing hard. 

Crowley studied his face, mustering a half-hearted frown.

"Don't bother. Everything's about to change, anyway," he replied in a murmur, glancing over at Dean and Castiel, too.

The syringe went into your neck, apparently. Didn't look pleasant, but Dean looked like he trusted the angel completely not to accidentally kill him. He had a hand resting on Cas’s wrist, and was reassuring him between winces. Fantastic.

"You're the only bit of you that cares," he added to Sam pointedly.

“That’s not true,” Sam said sadly, still whispering. He turned to Crowley, slipping his hands out of his pockets. He didn’t reach for the demon, though. “The other me loves you too. We love you so much.” A tear slipped down the big brunette’s cheek, and he shook his head. “We argued about it, me and the other me. There just isn’t a place for us. In Hell or on Earth. He kept telling me that, but I didn’t listen.” He reached out and took one of Crowley’s hands loosely in his. “We agreed to wait until we were whole again. You said the same thing. I’m sorry I stormed off.” 

Crowley cast a covert glance over at Dean and Castiel. The soul extracting syringe was half full of brilliant, glowing blue-white light, and Dean looked maybe like he was about to pass out. Cas had a hand resting on his hair gently. 

Well, they were definitely NOT paying attention to Crowley and Sam. Good.

He squeezed Sam's hand tightly, turning back to him. 

"One half or the other can see me while missing half of your morals," he whispered back. "Put you back together, and I'm not something you're capable of loving, Moose. ...Sam."

“Too late,” Sam shook his head, squeezing Crowley’s hand in return. He was actually crying now. He took a shaky breath and carefully wiped his eyes. 

Crowley looked up at him, wanting to say something. Wanting to say it, too. But he couldn't. He could in fact love, but he couldn't SAY it, not when it was about to all be torn away. Sam would remember when he was whole again, and then Crowley would either look like a liar or pathetic.

"I know this part of you does," he admitted, glancing again at Dean and Castiel. The syringe was just about full. That was the other half of Sam's soul...

A hand caught and turned his face back as Sam leaned in for a kiss. He broke away and stared down at Crowley sadly.

The demon frowned up at him, grabbing the collar of his shirt. He couldn't let it end like this -- not without a REAL kiss. He pulled Sam down enough to capture his lips, putting the passion he couldn't say into the kiss instead.

It was almost like goodbye.

For a moment, it felt like it was just the two of them in the world. Sam’s lips, the haunting scent of his cologne… Then it was over. Sam stepped away from him, looking impossibly heartbroken as he let go of Crowley’s hand. 

"Ugh..." Dean groaned, snapping Crowley's attention to him. Castiel was just helping him sit up. Sitting the syringe carefully aside, he placed a hand on one side of Dean's face and studied him carefully.

Crowley could tell as well -- Dean's soul was untouched, but that extra glow from Sam's soul half was gone from him.

"It worked," he called to them, mustering the best 'morons, of course it worked' tone he could to disguise the...FEELINGS whirling around in his chest right now. He wasn't used to feeling this much ANYTHING, and it made him a little ill.

The Sam that could love him was about to be gone forever.

“My turn,” Sam said, putting on a brave face and stepping over to join the other two. “How’re you feeling?” He asked Dean, perching on the edge of the medical bed.

His brother was looking kind of pale, but managed a wan smile as Castiel finished healing the needle mark and helped him get to his feet.

"Like I need a nap. It did work, though."

"You're probably just feeling the absence of so much more soul energy," Cas said, patting his shoulder. "Your own soul is still there."

Crowley didn't really want to be here, but he was pretty sure Feathers would need his help combining the soul halves. He stepped over next to the bed with the others, if only because lingering across the room looked suspiciously like something was bothering him.

Sam looked at him as he lay down, keeping his eyes on the demon. The teary eyes from moments before had vanished, replaced by a strange calm. As he lay his head against the rest, Sam closed his eyes. 

“I’m serious, Dean. Don’t let me do anything stupid. Please.” 

Dean sat heavily in the chair Cas had pushed away from the table, rubbing the side of his neck the needle had gone into. 

"I won't," he promised. He really did look pale; Crowley was positive he couldn't do anything but talk at his brother if Sam decided to do "something stupid." The demon crossed his arms and did his best not to stare at the man on the table too obviously.

He was in trouble. He'd been so careful not to admit his feelings to Sam, as if that somehow made them less real. This was so typical -- he was in love, and for what? Why do this to himself?

Only half of one soul he'd ever met was capable of loving him back, and Crowley had just kissed him goodbye. Literally.

Castiel took his bloody time extracting what soul Sam had left, probably concerned with hurting him, but still... Crowley just wanted it to be over with. This whole thing, all of it.

When the angel finally finished his task, the Sam on the table opened his eyes. He blinked as Cas healed the needle mark on the side of his neck and then sat up slowly, scanning over the angel and Dean sleepily. 

Castiel was examining the soul extractor's contents now -- two distinct glowing blue-white points drifting and weaving around each other. They clearly weren't going to just merge back together by being in close proximity. Of course not. That would've been too quick and easy.

Crowley had hoped, though.

"Hey," Dean told his brother, smiling not-so-happily. "You know the drill with the whole soulless thing by now -- I'm gonna be your moral compass. Okay?"

Crowley nearly rolled his eyes. Sam had had an affair with the King of Hell -- his moral compass wasn't exactly pointing true North even when he did have his soul.

“Yeah, I remember, Dean,” Sam said tiredly, hopping down from the bed and stretching. Then he finally glanced Crowley’s way. An oddly warm smile lit up his face and he cast a wave in the King of Hell’s direction. Making his way over to stand shoulder to shoulder with Crowley, Sam kept smiling with obvious fondness. “Hey.” 

Crowley saw Dean sigh and glance after his brother, and he had a very bad feeling about this all of a sudden.

"Hello, Moose," he replied, cursing inwardly. He'd been so focused on how foolishly, undeniably in love he was with the Sam that was going away that he hadn't really considered the one they'd be left with until his soul was returned.

The one with absolutely NO morals to guide him.

“Man!” Sam reached up and slowly trailed his fingers through his hair, giving Crowley a cheeky wink. “I could use a nap. That syringe really took a lot out of me.” He reached over casually and gave Crowley’s silk tie a tug. “Do you want to come?” 

Crowley raised his eyebrows, trying to come up with a response that wouldn't make Dean come after him with the holy water. Judging by the twinkle in Sam's eyes, it might be worth the risk...

No, he told himself bitterly, Sam broke up with him and if he wouldn't take advantage of his lovey dovey side, it made no sense to take advantage of this one, either.

"Oookay, hands off the demon," Dean interrupted, dragging himself out of his chair to step over and try to detach Sam's grip on Crowley's tie. The look he shot the King made it clear he didn't think Sam was the one at fault here.

It figured.

Turning back to his brother, Dean added evenly, "Moral compass talk, Sammy: NO. Bad idea."

Sam sighed long, looking from Dean to Crowley and back. 

“Fine. Got it. I’m going to go change. I’ve been in pajamas for days.” He half turned, then paused to look at Dean. “Is that okay, moral compass?” 

"A-okay," Dean assured him, smiling. "Cas and Crowley are gonna work on putting your soul back together, and then you'll be good as new."

Latching onto the change of subject, Crowley quickly turned his back on Sam and focused on Castiel instead.

"Okay, Feathers, let's get started."

"Right. Dean can watch Sam," the angel replied, glancing after the taller Winchester. He was still holding the souls in the syringe very carefully with both hands.

Dean nodded and started after Sam.

Moose took his time walking, casting a friendly smile back at Crowley before Dean caught up to him.

Trouble indeed.


	14. Sour Grapes

With Dean hovering around him, Sam actually did what he said he would do and changed clothes. He swapped his pajamas out for…more pajamas. A pair of gray and green flannel pants and a comfy looking black henley. He turned to Dean and sighed. 

“I’m not trying to piss you off, but God. I forgot how good this feels.” He patted his chest with a palm and shook his head. “All that guilt lifted. No worries about you, or Cas, or Crowley…” His little brother trailed off at the last name, eyes growing distant like he might actually be thinking. 

"Crowley, huh," Dean said, glancing over. He was leaning against the wall near the door -- there was watching Sam to keep him out of trouble, then there was just plain being a pest by hovering too close. "You aren't still guilty about that time you tried to cure him, are you?"

He almost wished the plan involved losing HIS soul for a little bit, to blur out cares about how he'd been behaving toward Cas the past 24 hours. ("Behaving" was not the word...)

With the Mark, though, a soulless Dean would be a lot more likely to actually try to kill somebody than Sam. Sam was just plain a better person than him, even without his soul.

“No way,” Sam chuckled. “Not right now at least.” He shrugged and stepped over to lean against the door framing, eyeing Dean around it. “Demons can’t love. I didn’t know that back in that church, but I sure as hell know it now. So stupid.” He shook his head and then smirked. It was a very cat-like expression that showed his teeth. “You should have let me kill him.” 

Dean glanced back at him, something nagging in the back of his mind.

Having half of Sam's soul had been like being drunk. There were a LOT of embarrassing porn-style fantasies cluttering his memories (mostly about Cas...thank God he didn't read minds these days.) In some corner somewhere, though, there was the moment Sam had told him about breaking up with the mystery guy he'd been dating.

Crowley and Sam had looked kind of bitter over something, and Dean recalled his love-fixated soul-and-a-half self concluding that CROWLEY had been Mystery Boyfriend. But that was nuts, right?

"Don't be the sour grapes ex," he told his brother drolly, testing the waters. Hey, he could still pretend it was just a lousy joke if he was wrong.

“You know, if I HAD killed him…” Sam pushed off of the wall and paced, glancing at Dean again. He seemed completely serious now. “…The world would look a whole lot different. I wonder if it’d be better or worse off. Crowley’s a pain in the ass, yeah, but he’s pretty easy to control. You just have to be patient.” Sam took a seat on the end of the bed, giving Dean another shrug. “You’d be amazed what he’ll do for me. I don’t know — maybe demons CAN love.” He frowned in thought. 

Dean let his gaze follow his brother, but only moved to go sit beside him after Sam had already sat down.

"Sammy," he said seriously, looking him in the eye. If eyes were "the windows to the soul", Sam's shining hazel ones did a good job lying that they led somewhere. "You were dating Crowley. Right? Mystery Boyfriend is the King of Hell."

“Yeah, Dean. Crowley was the Mystery Boyfriend,” Sam said in exasperation. “If you’re gonna throw a tantrum about it, don’t bother. We aren’t together as of like fifteen minutes ago. We were going back and forth about it, but Crowley was just…I don’t know. I was bored. He was bored. You were out getting beer.” He looked at Dean again, shrugging. “Whatever. We have bigger things to worry about. I guess.” 

"Wow..." Dean blinked and looked at the floor, letting that process. He'd suspected, he'd ASKED, and Sam without his soul was incapable of sugar-coating things to spare anybody's feelings.

Now that he had confirmation of the affair, he just had a sinking feeling, though. Conversations with both of the sides of Sam were running through his head -- tears shed over the thought of breaking up, Sam so sure Dean would hate whoever he was texting...

Dean encouraging him to stick it out and stay together. And it was Crowley this whole time.

After their little “summer of love” while Dean was a demon, he had to admit that Crowley wasn’t as pure evil as he’d assumed in the past. He was still a friggin’ demon, though, not to mention the King of HELL.

“We were pretty serious for awhile,” Sam added, putting on that fake-caring tone. Like Dean would be mad or something if it had been casual. Jeez, Sam really had dropped his moral compass. “You know, we didn’t just have sex every time.”

Dean glanced at him quickly, fighting the urge to scream "TMI" because there wasn't a chance in Hell Sam would tell him anything about this once he had his soul back. Dean knew his brother -- Sam would shut this away and pretend it never happened.

"How, uh, how long were you guys at your...more-than-sex-ing?" He asked awkwardly, cringing. It sounded like maybe some strings had been attached by the time they broke up. Sam had been talking about breaking up after he was split in half, which meant the break up happened AFTER that...

Which meant, if Sam really loved Crowley, Dean could try to help them patch things up. Was that really the best thing to do for Sam, though? It was CROWLEY.

“A…awhile,” Sam admitted, looking away with a frown. “I think it’s been almost six months since we were just hooking up in the car. After that, it’s been dinner and coffee shops and all sorts of stuff.” He looked at Dean again. “Do you think they’re done with the soul yet?” 

Six months. Dean got to his feet quickly, trying not to show just how much that bothered him. He'd been so caught up in things, first being a demon, then trying to get back to normal and come up with a way to get the Mark off. He'd thought he was managing to watch Sam's back, too, but if he'd overlooked THIS...

"Let's go check," he replied shortly, waving for his brother to follow. He waited for Sam to move first before heading for the door.

Sam followed after him easily, completely unaffected by the conversation they had just had. He even seemed to have an extra spring in his step. 

“Hey, did we drink all the coffee?”

Dean shrugged a little, rubbing the side of his neck. Cas had healed up the needle mark, but it somehow still hurt. Considering the fact that the needle poked souls, it probably wasn't his neck that was stinging.

He was going to have to talk to Cas again, and the angel's opinion of him probably wasn't the greatest at the moment, with how he'd been acting. Then again, it was CAS. He'd probably be forgiven immediately. That made it worse, somehow. Today was just sinking lower and lower...

“Are you all freaked out about me? Or is it Cas?” Sam asked. He sounded honestly confused. “You know he doesn’t care. Cas is about as sexual as a potato.”

Dean sighed.

"I'll tell you when you've got a soul again," he muttered. They'd arrived at the door to the lab, and he paused there, turning to his brother. "Do you remember being in love with Crowley?"

“Of course,” Sammy said without hesitation. He raised an eyebrow at Dean. “Why?”

"Just wondered." Dean shrugged it off, reaching for the doorknob. The instant response told him all he needed to know: to Sam, this hadn't been just an affair.

Crowley and Cas were seated at the table near the bed, a large glass bottle between them. The angel had both hands resting on it like it might fly off onto the floor without warning.

And the King of Hell, Sam's Mystery now-ex-Boyfriend, was capping the top with melted wax in a sigil seal. The contents of the bottle glimmered in a muted way, like the sun through seawater.

“Did the spell work?” Sam headed right over to the table, looking at the bottle with curiosity. He took a seat right next to Crowley, looking at him expectantly. Not one iota of discomfort that Crowley was his ex. “It’s not in two pieces, so I’m guessing yes?” 

"It did," Cas confirmed, smiling at him. He glanced over at Dean, who couldn't really look him in the eye right now without a silent apology tacked on, and blinked.

Sam was right, he probably didn't even know what Dean felt like apologizing for. It still felt like Dean should, though. Cas deserved some sort of acknowledgment.

"It's a lot easier to combine something like a soul without pesky flesh in the way," Crowley said mildly, patting the side of the bottle. He stood from his chair in a bit of a hurry, Dean noticed, and gestured to room at large. "That's all I'm needed for, yes?"

“We need you for the spell, if it’s anything like the one we did last time.” Sam looked at Crowley and shrugged. “Then you can go.”

Now that he was watching for it, Dean was positive Crowley frowned the slightest bit at the 'you can go.' He still couldn't believe that his brother had managed to date the freaking King of Hell for six months without him noticing.

"We don't need to cast any spells for this," Cas told them, glancing at Dean again. The hunter tried not to scowl so noticeably.

Damn it, Crowley was going to flee the scene, Sam was gonna get his soul back and actually be hurt about the breakup, and Dean didn't know what to do. Letting them break up and keeping Sam from dating a DEMON was right...right? It didn't feel right.

"Stick around," he told Crowley quickly, before he could throw a "bye, boys" at them and vanish. "Your spell merged Sam's body back -- I wanna make sure it stays that way."

“Do I drink it?” He heard Sam ask as his brother scooped the soul bottle up out of Castiel’s hand and held it up to look at it. He had both hands on the jar, thank God.

Cas exchanged a glance with Crowley, who nodded.

"It's sealed into the bottle until someone melts the seal again," Cas explained, standing from the table. "Crowley's inscribed a word to do that -- you press the seal to your skin, say the word, and it'll transfer the soul back into you."

Dean wanted to linger by the door, but concern for Sam (and keeping an eye on Crowley so he didn't flee the scene) overrode guilt over hitting on Cas. He stepped over near the table with everybody else.

"Sounds pretty straightforward."

“Anything else?” Sam rotated the bottle to find the word.

Cas and Crowley exchanged a glance again, like they knew something the brothers didn't.

"You may want to sit down," Cas suggested.

Sam did as he was told and took a seat again. He settled in and then looked at Dean. He was waiting for an okay. Dean had made a huge deal out of being Sam’s moral compass the last time his little brother wound up soulless. It was nice that he remembered to get Dean’s approval for big things, at least. 

Even without a soul, Sam was such a good person. He was way too good for Crowley. He deserved to be happy... But did he deserve a demon, even if a demon was what he wanted?

Dean stepped closer and gave his brother a nod.

"Now or never, huh?"

“ _Integrum._ ” Sam pressed the bottle’s wax seal to his neck and spoke the word to activate it, not unlike the syringe that they had used earlier to remove his soul. He looked at Crowley as the contents of the bottle shimmered brilliantly. The soul inside shifted in shape, then shot out of the bottle, vaporizing the seal. Sam gasped and dropped the jar, which exploded into glittering shards across the bunker floor. Sammy’s eyes flared hot white, cooling to blue before returning to his usual hazel.

Had it worked?


	15. Winners and Users

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updates lately, guys! Couyfish's arm is still on the mend, but she can type again without straining it now. It's not Friday, but I figure this chapter's way late anyway, so here we have it -- Sam's got his complete soul for the first time in the entire story! How's that going to go?

Cas and Crowley both crowded close to get a better look at Sam, and Dean felt unreasonably like he was failing his brother for not being able to see souls like the rest of the room.

"Sammy?" He asked uncertainly.

“Whoa,” Sam said through a grimace. He took a breath and sat up straighter. “It worked!” He smiled at his brother, turning to Crowley. The smile fell off his face and a look of realization dawned. “Thank you,” Sam managed after a second. He shifted in his seat to face the table and swallowed. 

"All seems well, so I'm off," Crowley said promptly, taking a step back.

"Whoa whoa, hold up," Dean insisted, frowning and waving a hand at him.

"His soul looks perfectly normal now," Cas confirmed, glancing at Dean.

"Great," Dean replied. "But Crowley's not leaving until we have a chat." He gave the demon a pointed look. He was still conflicted about whether this was a good idea, but one look at Sam's face when he looked at Crowley and his mind had been made up -- they had to talk. Even just to confirm they were broken up, something.

The demon stopped short at that, turning to face him. He got this sort of resigned look on his face and sighed slowly.

"Sam told you, of course."

“I did. Oh god, I did.” Sam slapped a hand to his head, groaning. He held his hand up to Dean and shook his head. “No, we don’t have to talk about this. It’s…Crowley and I already came to a, um, conclusion about all of…” He gestured between him and the demon. “This.” 

"Yes we did," Crowley said flatly. He didn't look at Sam, giving Dean a stare instead, but gestured between himself and the younger brother. "And it was all pretty conclusive before we even discussed it face to face. Tip, Moose: ending it by text message isn't very classy of you."

Dean blinked. Okay, that wasn't deadpan anymore, it was outright bitter.

"You know what? Bullshit," he said, frowning. "Sam LOVES you -- he said that even without a soul."

Crowley pulled out his phone, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh, really. I have a text that says otherwise."

“DEAN! What the hell!” Sammy snapped, glaring his brother down. He turned to Crowley and shook his head. “The break up text wasn’t whole me. It was the one that…I don’t know. The one that was logical. Him and I fought about it right after he appeared because the entire reason I tried to cast the spell in the first place was so that I’d have more time to spend with YOU. I’m sorry. I was so on the fence about this. I didn’t know what to do and I sure as hell couldn’t ask Dean. Or Cas. Anybody, really. I just had me.” 

His expression shifted to a softer, more sad one and he dropped his gaze to the floor to avoid looking at any of them. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Dean felt a stab of guilt at that kind of talk. Sam thought he couldn't rely on him for this, couldn't talk to him. Not when he still had his soul, anyway. And this whole spell situation was over Crowley, too…of course it was.

"You mean fought with YOU about it," the demon said, still bitterly. "You remember the soft side as yourself, but it isn't." He looked at Sam finally, resigned. "You were right, you know. You were playing with fire. It was right to put it out before you got burnt."

“Okay,” Sam said with a nod, keeping his eyes down cast. “But just to clear the air — because you won’t believe either halves of me — I love you.” He glanced Dean’s way sadly and swallowed, finally looking at Crowley. “I didn’t when we started dating. I just wanted to use you,” he admitted, eyes threatening to tear up. 

“Then I fell in over my head. I couldn’t get out. I wanted to be around you so much and you were content to just keep things the way they were. I couldn’t...I couldn’t leave it like that. I wanted us to be together — really together — but part of me wanted to break up. Just go our separate ways and never look back.” He took a shaky breath and stepped back from the demon. 

Their conversation from the bedroom was playing for Dean once again. Sam bragging that he could get Crowley do almost anything for him. Coffee shops and dinner dates, and the easy matter-of-fact way that his brother had confirmed that he remembered being in love.

Of course, why?

"I was using you, too," Crowley replied coolly. He was studying Sam's expression carefully now, though, and even took a step forward to follow him. "What else would a demon do? You don't believe me capable of anything more."

It seemed like a challenge to prove him wrong.

Sam just nodded, though, tears finally running down his face. He bit his lip and ducked out the door before anyone could say anything else. 

Dean and Castiel both turned to Crowley just in time to see him vanish from the room.  


* * *

  
Sam slammed his bedroom door and locked it. Had he just stormed off? On the King of Hell? Broken up or not, Crowley was probably more pissed than ever. Pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes, Sam took several slow breaths, trying to calm himself down. It didn’t work. At all. Each careful deep breath led to a sob.

He shoved away from the door and paced the room, raking a hand through his hair. How stupid did he have to be to let himself fall into Crowley’s trap? Hadn’t he learned? Every time he or Dean thought they had gotten the jump on the demon, he one upped them. Why would dating him be any different? Still crying, Sam shook his head. 

Turning on his bed, he snagged his pillow and threw it with all his might at the wall. It slapped softly against it, knocking several knives and books to the floor as it fell. Throwing things would solve nothing, but damn it felt good. Killing something also sounded good. Sam sniffled and knelt to gather the knives from the floor, wiping at his cheeks. He dumped the knives back on top of the dresser and bit his lip. 

Why was he still crying? Crowley had won. He’d used Sam and dumped him when he got bored. Then openly admitted it to Sam’s face. Sam sniffed again, resting a hand on one of the knives. It was the same one that he had tried to use to kill himself. That half of him. The one that threatened him with logic and reason. The one that said a Winchester couldn’t date the King of Hell. 

The one that saw the truth. 

Sam picked the knife up with a scowl, turning and throwing it hard enough that it stuck in the door across the room. 

The knife thunked into the wood about three inches from Crowley's shoulder. At some point the demon had appeared there, and was just looking at him silently. He looked neither happy or sad, just...calm.

Crying all over again, Sam picked up another knife and held it at the ready.

“GET OUT!”

"Or what? You'll hurt me?" Crowley asked, taking a few steps forward into the room. The calm expression faltered the tiniest bit; his brows furrowed. "You've got better tools than knives for that."

“You won. Is that what you want to hear?” Sam snapped, tossing the knife aside. He crossed the room to meet Crowley, looming over him. “I hope you got whatever you wanted, because that’s the last time you get the better of me.” 

Sam couldn’t sound as angry as he wanted to, breathing in a shaky breath. He stared into the demon’s eyes, awash in memories of secret kisses and the purr of Crowley’s voice in his ear. Every little moment hurt like a knife in his chest. The anger was burning out so fast. All he wanted to do was get away. 

Why had he ever told anyone? It would have hurt so much less if Crowley didn’t know that Sam loved him. 

"I actually didn't," Crowley replied bitterly. He looked small for once, hazel eyes snapping as he glared up at Sam. "Because it's YOU I wanted -- the single STUPIDEST thing I've ever wanted!" He grabbed the front of Sam's pajama shirt like he might shake him, but just held fast to it.

Sam caught his hand, but didn’t remove it. He stared down at Crowley sadly. He didn’t know what to say. If the demon was really just playing with him, that couldn’t happen. He pushed Crowley away. 

“I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m not like Dean. I’m not going to be your demon buddy. You’ll have to kill me first.” 

Crowley let himself be brushed aside with shocking ease. He stepped back until his back hit the door, shaking his head.

"Not like that," he said quietly. "Your affection. Your...love. I know now how idiotic that sounds. I'm surprised you could keep a straight face while lying to everyone about it."

“Love?” Sam asked, disbelief evident on his face. He shook his head, pointing back out the door and bracing himself for the worst. “We’ve been together for almost a year. I sneaked around behind Cas’s back. I lied to Dean ROUTINELY. I went anywhere you wanted us to go, did whatever you wanted us to do. I split my soul in half trying to make time for you. I would have lived with you if you asked me to! I would have married you! You already had ‘MY LOVE!’” 

Screaming at Crowley hadn’t been his plan, but it was the only way he wouldn’t sound so hurt. 

"And yet it took 'losing your senses' to say so!" Crowley burst, grabbing his shirt again. "Now that you've got the ability to REASON back, loving a demon is impossible, isn't it? You don't really think there's any hope for happiness with a THING like me and you never did."

“You didn’t exactly offer up any ‘I love yous’ either,” Sam growled in his face, but when he took hold of Crowley’s shoulders, he couldn’t stay angry. He stared down at the King, looking for an answer in his eyes. 

Then he whispered, “I almost killed the other half of me because he told me the same thing. He said I wasn’t allowed to love you. It was stupid and you were evil and all those other reasonable, well-thought out things. But I…” His eyebrows pinched and he blinked to clear the sudden tears blurring his vision. 

“I didn’t care. The side of you that I finally got to see, I loved it so much. As much as I love Dean and Cas. Anybody. I didn’t care if you really loved me. I lay awake at night, praying that you weren’t just playing me. I waited for months. I told myself over and over again that you would come around — that maybe even a demon like you could love me. I DID have hope for us.” 

He let his hands fall from Crowley’s shoulders. 

“I still do.”


	16. Mutual Meddling

“I still do.”

"Yet you think I don't." The talk of love seemed to have taken the wind out of any angry sails Crowley had. Now he just looked hurt. "You hope, but you don't believe I can. You're so furious that I couldn't see your love, but you've...you've had mine, too, for a long time. Did you notice?"

The words had gotten smaller and smaller as he spoke. Tears shone in his eyes. He turned where Sam had been pointing, finally, and considered the door.

“I love you,” Sam called after him. He had already said it before, but he couldn’t let Crowley leave without saying it again. He stepped after the shorter man and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “I was…I was so suspicious — so on guard — that you’re right. I didn’t believe that you could love me. Not really. I couldn’t let myself believe it. It was easier to pretend we were just having fun.” 

"At first we were, weren't we?" Crowley sighed and turned back to face Sam. There was a fond little smile on his face, though. "We really were just toying with each other. That's what I meant when I said I was using you, Moose. That's how it goes with anyone else. I'm a demon, that's all it usually amounts to."

He took a step forward, meeting Sam's eyes -- reaching a hand up to touch his face. 

"But not with you."

“Really?” Sam took Crowley in his arms and pulled him in closer, placing a kiss on his head before meeting his gaze again. He forced a sad smile and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry I let half of me send that text.” 

Crowley was reaching up and smoothing down Sam's messy hair, other hand still cupping his face. Up close, the tears in his eyes were impossible to overlook. Despite it all, he smiled.

"That message hurt," he murmured, no anger behind the words. "And that's how I knew that I loved you."

“You love me. You actually said it.” Sam’s mouth fell open as he stared down at the demon. He had actually admitted it. Said it out loud to Sam’s face that he loved him. Whatever form that love took, it was all Sam had hoped for. He clasped the hand Crowley had in his hair, sweeping the demon closer and pressing a long overdue kiss to his lips. 

Words couldn’t wait, though, and he broke away quickly, staring down into those hazel eyes. “You can’t take it back. Please.” 

Crowley's gaze flicked down to his shoulder, almost scared, and he practically clung to Sam's hand. Sam wasn’t the only one in too deep, was he?

"I-I really can't."

“Neither can I,” Sam whispered. He slipped a hand behind the King’s neck and the other around his shoulders, pulling him in for a slower kiss. The thought that Crowley would stay was like a calming wave crashing over him. A weight lifted from his soul. Whether he loved a demon or not wasn’t important anymore. All that mattered was that that demon loved him back.  


* * *

  
“Dean, you should leave him be,” Cas said again, hurrying after the hunter down the hallway. 

“No, we’ve gotta talk,” Dean replied bitterly. “Can’t just let it rest.” He knew that he was the last person Sam wanted to talk to right now (well, with the exception of that using S.O.B. Crowley), but his brother didn’t cry like that over just anything. No, Sam’s heart was broken, and Dean had jumpstarted the conversation that broke it.

It was true that Crowley and Sam needed to talk to each other. Forcing the issue hadn’t been pretty, though. If nothing else, if he couldn’t fix things, Dean at least owed Sam an apology.

Castiel shot him a disapproving look when they stopped in front of Sam’s bedroom door, but made no move to stop him as Dean knocked on it. There was no avoiding this thing for long, anyway. The same went for his weird feelings of not-quite-friendship for Cas, but right now Sam was more important.

There was a long pause, then he heard footsteps approach the door. It pulled back just enough for Sam to look out at them, eyes misty. He looked between Cas and Dean calmly. 

“Yeah?” 

Dean swallowed hard at the memory of the tears from before, studying his brother’s face. Sam looked calm, but tired. His eyes were red. Even as terribly as Crowley had handled that conversation, Dean felt responsible.

“What I said back there,” he began, brows furrowing. He couldn’t really explain this in any way to justify it. If Sam had tried to make him and an ex talk like that, he would’ve been beyond angry. “Sammy, I’m sorry. I knew it was none of my business, but I knew how you felt, and I-I was pretty sure Crowley felt something or he wouldn’t have been pissed you broke up with him, so — “

“He meddled,” Cas supplied, stepping forward to look at Sam with concern. “Are you okay, Sam?”

Sam opened the door more and nodded to the angel. 

“I’m alright. Good, actually.” He glanced back into his room and then smiled softly. “As awesome as it is to hear you say sorry, you don’t need to. If you hadn’t said anything, Crowley would have left.” 

Dean opened his mouth to reply, but the King of Hell stepping up next to Sam and hugging him sideways kind of killed any thoughts.

“Wha — but you guys just broke up,” he said, glancing quickly between the two of them. “Crowley DID leave, didn’t he?”

“Left you,” the demon replied mildly. “Went right to Moose’s room.”

Sam blushed and agreed with a nod. 

“Your ‘meddling’ actually helped a lot.” The brunette leaned to rest his chin on Crowley’s head, hugging the shorter man. He glanced away from Dean to Cas, speaking very carefully. “How are you guys? Everything…okay?”

Dean’s first impulse was to give Crowley the ‘hurt my brother again and I’ll end you’ look of doom, but honestly he didn’t care how they’d worked it out, as long as they did. He’d already decided that he would support Sam dating a demon if that’s what made Sam happy, so did it matter? 

At the moment, the fact that he couldn’t glance back at Castiel’s expression without making it obvious by turning around was way more pressing. Why was Sam asking about them like there was a ‘them’?

“Now that we aren’t saddened by seeing you so upset, we’re fine,” Cas replied. He did a great job of making it about Sam again instead of him and Dean, that was for sure. Dean wasn’t sure if he was impressed or disappointed.

Wait, why the hell was he disappointed Cas didn’t think Sam meant ‘them’ them? There WAS no ‘them’!

“Okay.” Sam nodded slowly, still holding Crowley close to his side. He looked at Dean and frowned. “It’s none of my business,” he began, sighing, “But Crowley and I don’t seem like the only ones that need to talk.” He glanced pointedly at Cas.

Dean could resist no longer — he took a step to the side and half-turned so he could see the angel’s face. The little squinty frowny face Cas did when he was puzzling somebody else’s words over was so damn cute. Okay, so Dean couldn’t blame having a soul-and-a-half on thoughts like that. He sure wasn’t ready to talk about it, though.

Castiel seemed to have other ideas, though. He turned to Dean and took not one, but both of his hands, holding them tightly. The hunter’s heart did a little flip-flop, and he bit his bottom lip.

“He’s right, Dean,” Cas said, blue eyes intent on his own. Subtlety was not Cas’s forte, and right now that was actually a good thing. Dean couldn’t mistake that look for ‘we need to talk about friend stuff, as friends, because we’re nothing more than friends.’ That was a ‘let’s get coffee and maybe you’ll get laid’ look. 

Or maybe he was projecting a little. Still, whoa.

“…Well, it’s nice catching up with you two and all,” Crowley commented suddenly, reaching for the door to Sam’s room. “But we’ve got an awful lot of catching up to do, ourselves. Feathers, feed him. Squirrel, use your words.”

Before Dean could comment, the door was already swinging shut. Crowley didn’t even wait until it was closed to pull Sam down for a kiss, either.

“Wow. Okay, then,” he said, glancing at Cas. Yep, the intent stare was still there. The angel had also forgotten to let go of his hands, and he looked perfectly at home holding onto them. Dean mustered a nervous little smile. “Feel like going for a drive?”

He’d expected a nod or something — definitely not for Cas to lean in and kiss his cheek. He could feel his heart tripping over itself, full speed ahead and flustered, as they started for the garage hand in hand. Maybe he’d had Cas all wrong before this whole double Sams incident. He was a little nervous and a lot excited to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading our fic! Couyfish hurt her arm and could not type for quite awhile, there, so apologies for the spotty updates. At last, it is complete, and these four goobers have talked things out, sorta. Close enough. We hope you enjoyed the final chapter, and comments and kudos are always appreciated! ♥


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